The walking dead are coming for the last of us
by M2aster
Summary: After a bandit attack separated her from Crista, Clementine meets Ellie and together they journey across the walker infested united stats in search of a safe haven, along the way they will meet both old faces and new, both friends and foes and ultimately somewhere along the road they most both make a choice, north or west.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

"Please don't be bad" Clementine said to herself as she raised the newly cleaned knife she had pulled out of the dead walker's rotting arm.

She cast a quick look at Sam, the dog was sitting right in front of her staring at the tin can in her left hand and wagging his tail in expectation.

Clementine stabbed the top of the can and sliced into the metal, she could smell the content of the can and as far as she could tell it didn't smell bad, in fact it made her mouth water, she vigorously repeated the stabbing and cutting motion two more times and twisted the make shift lid of the can up, to her great satisfaction she saw the can full of beans unspoiled by time, she breathed a sigh of relief "thank god".

Without further delay she scooped up a hand full of the beans and gulped them down, they didn't taste much but she hadn't eaten anything in over a day so that didn't bother her much.

She scooped up another hand full of beans and was about to put them into her mouth when her attention was drawn to Sam, the dog had started to make whimpering noises.

She looked at the starved dog, his skin was hugging his meager frame so tightly that all his ribs were visible even under his dirt covered shaggy brown fur, he was a pitiful sight.

"I guess you're pretty hungry too huh" she stretched out her hand full of beans to him "here you go" but rather than eat the offered food Sam went for the can instead, Clementine was taken completely by surprise and dropped it on the ground were some of its precious content flew out and landed on the wet ground.

Sam was on it in a second and tried to shove his snout into the can without a care for the sharp metal edges, "hey don't eat it all" Clementine exclaimed and snatched the can away from the hungry dog, Sam bared his teeth and growled.

Clementine didn't even have a chance to react before he lunched at her, his mouth opening wide and then closed just as fast on her exposed forearm, his sharp yellow teeth's tore into her flesh drawing blood.

Blinding pain shoot through Clementine left arm and she cried out in agony, it was pain unlike anything she had felt before, Sam yanked her of the log she'd been sitting on and to the ground on all four.

He released her arm but before she could do anything lunched at her again forcing her onto her back and bite down ones again on her now bleeding arm.

She screamed in pain and fear as his teeth ones again dug into her flesh, her survival instinct kicked in and she punched the dog in the head to make him release her, she punched him again and again and each time a jolt of pain went through her bleeding arm but the dog refused to let go.

Out of the corner of her eyes Clementine saw the knife and stretched out her free arm to grab it – sending a fresh jolt of pain through the other one with the movement – but the knife was out of her reach and even when she stretched her arm to the fullest she could just barely touch the grip with the tips of her fingers.

Suddenly, without warning, Sam released his grip on her and let out a whimpering howl as a streak of brown and white bored into his body with such force that he was sent sideways onto the ground.

With her arm now free Clementine managed to reach the knife and grab it, she quickly crawled backwards holding her weapon up in front of her ready for another attack from the dog.

Panting she stared in chock and fear at her former friend turned attacker as he whimpered in pain on the ground his legs kicking feebly, an arrow – that had sunk almost to the fletching – was sticking out of his side, she did not look at him for long as her attention was drawn to the sound of rustling bushes and footsteps come from her left.

A girl with a bow stepped out of the foliage that surrounded the campsite, she was maybe two or three years older than Clementine with dirty red brown hair that she had setup in a ponytail, she was dressed in a dark red hoodie with a green jacket, worn jeans and a pair of black and white shoes.

As Clementine took in her appearance the girl notched an arrow into her bow, Clementine's eyes widened in fear as she saw the girl draw the string back, raised the bow and took aim, with a twang the arrow was sent flying, it made a swooshing sound as it passed through the air and embedded itself in Sam's head with a meaty thunk, ending the dog's suffering.

Clementine stared at the dead dog and felt to her own surprise sad, yes Sam had attacked her but he had been without human interaction and starving out in the wilderness for a long time and that was bound to make a dog go wild, he probably thought that she was trying to deny him the food he so desperately needed when she snatched the can away from him.

The sound of approaching footsteps made her remember the she wasn't alone and in potential danger, she turned her head so fast that it made her neck crack and raised her knife warningly, the girl stopped and they eyed each other warily, Clementine's yellow against the girl's green.

Clementine's mind was racing through her options, the only weapon she had was her short knife and it was only good for close combat and the girl was too far away for that, her left arm was wounded and bleeding, it would be almost useless to her in a fight and she had hardly eaten anything for a whole day – a very eventful day to boot, bandits, walkers, almost drowning in a river and attacked by a starved dog - so she was tired and weak.

The girl on the other hand was armed with a bow and arrows and she probably had more weapons on her that Clementine couldn't see, she was also older, bigger and without a doubt stronger then Clementine, she did look a bit winded as if she had been running but not exhausted and she had no visible wounds.

If the two of them fought now then Clementine would definitely lose, seeing that she had chance of winning Clementine threw the knife away, raised her hands and lowered her head in defeat, if the girl wanted to kill her she would have done so already of that Clementine was sure, no she was most likely just like the one that had shot Omid, a thief who would just rob her – not that she had anything worth stealing – then leave her be, hopefully "you can lower your arms, you're not my prisoner or anything" the girl said a bit nonchalantly "I'm not going to hurt you".

Clementine raised her head and gave the girl a doubtful look before she lowered her arms, now that she was closer Clementine noticed features on the girl she hadn't seen before, like that her cheeks and nose was covered in freckles and that she had a short scar that went diagonal across her right eyebrow.

"You alright?" the red haired girl asked, the question as well as the concern Clementine heard in the girl's voice took her by surprise but before she could utter a single word the girl saw her bleeding arm and whispered the word "fuck".

Clementine looked down at her arm and grimaced, Sam's teeth had torn up a long ugly gash in her forearm, the wound was bleeding profusely and she knew that it needed to be treated and bandaged quickly to avoid infection and blood loss, she was already feeling a bit light headed.

The other girl shouldered the bow and crouched down next to her "here, let me take a look at it" Clementine stared warily at her for a few seconds but since she wasn't in a position to reject help she stretched out her arm to the girl who took it gingerly "damn, he really did a number on you huh" she said and bite her lower lip.

"How bad is it?" Clementine asked, she had never been wounded like this before so she wasn't completely sure what needed to be done, stitching most likely " _that's going to suck_ ".

"Your arm's a mess, luckily for you I have everything we need to fix you up right here" she said and unslung her backpack, Clementine eyed it with rising hope, could she be this lucky?

"What's your name?" the brunette asked as she shoved her hand into the backpack and started to rummage around, "Clementine".

"I'm Ellie" she said just as a cold wind swept through the campsite, the cold was made even worse for Clementine whose clothes was still damp from her time in the river, she shuddered, "you cold?" Clementine answered with a nod "I fell in the river last night and I haven't fully dried yet".

"Holy shit" Ellie said sounding much more concerned, she pulled out what looked like a pink, cream and brown colored jacked that had been crumpled into a ball and placed it on the ground, she gave Clementine a friendly smile "you can wear this after we have fixed you up, it's a bit big for you but it's better than freezing right?"

Clementine looked at the jacket and then at the girl "why are you helping me?" she asked, Ellie stopped rummaging around in her backpack and an awkward silence followed before she finally said "what scares you the most" she asked and turned to look at Clementine who wasn't sure whether she should answer her question or demand an answer to her own.

Ellie didn't wait for her to answer however "the thing that scares me the most is being by myself, all alone" she had a hunted look on her face like she was remembering something very painful.

Clementine knew that fear, it was the same fear that she herself had felt when she hadn't found Crista and Omid by the train station in Savannah, the same fear she had felt when she had woken up at the side of the river, that she would be all alone in a world full of the walking dead with no one to talk to but herself and no one there to help her when she needed it, "and now it's happened, I…I don't have a group, not anymore" Ellie said and there was no mistaking the fear and pain in her voice.

"I'm sorry" Clementine didn't know anything else to say.

"Yeah, so am I" Ellie said and went back to rummaging in her backpack.

After a bit more digging she pulled up a green bag and unzipped it, when Clementine saw what it contained she couldn't stop her jaw from dropping, the bag was full to the brim with bandages, syringes, needles, medicines bottles and many other things that Clementine could only guess the medical purpose of.

"Where did you get that?" she asking in astonishment, "oh I picked it up from a stalker I killed, I think he was an army medic or something" Ellie shrugged "he wasn't going to use it" she answered offhandedly as if they were discussing the weather.

Clementine's forehead wrinkled "stalker? You mean the walking dead?" the other girl nodded and pulled out a bottle and a piece of clean cloth "yeah, you know because they follow you wherever you go and there is always one around somewhere, what do you call them?"

"Walkers" Ellie nodded and unscrewed the top of the bottle and placed the cloth to it "it's as good a name as any I guess makes more sense than some of the other names I have heard" she tipped it over and held it there for two seconds before tipping it back.

"This is going to sting a lot" she warned before she dabbed the cloth against the wound, Clementine's hissed as the new needle like pain stabbed at her arm where the cloth touched.

"Damn that sucks" she hissed and took deep breath, "I'm assuming you haven't survived out here on your own since the outbreak started" Ellie said and dabbed another spot of the wound "so where's your group?"

"I don't really have one either, I was with a woman, Christa" Clementine hissed through clenched teeth, "where's she now?" Ellie looked around as if expecting Christa to walk into the ruined campsite, a heavy lump formed in Clementine's throat, it took her several seconds to reply "we got separated when bandits attacked us yesterday".

Clementine hadn't been entirely sure what kind of reaction Ellie would have to her words but she had not expected anger to be one of them, "welcome to the club" she said with a voice so bitter it could curdle milk.

Clementine stared at her in surprise, "bandits attacked your group to?" Ellie nodded her face grim, she put the bottle and cloth back in the bag.

"Two days ago" she pulled out a small package and another ball of cloth, "we were heading west through the forest when one of our trucks broke down, Bill and Frank almost had it running again when we were attacked" she opened the package and pulled out a curved needle and thread.

"Fuckers came out of nowhere and opened fire on us" she said angrily "the others tried to organize and fight them off but we never stood a chance it was a fucking massacre" she put her hands on the younger girl's shoulders, "It'll be easier if you lay down" she said a bit sharply and pushed her down on her back, "we had little choice but to run for it and in the confusion I got separated from the others" she took Clementine's wounded arm and lay it gently on the balled up jacket so it wouldn't touch the ground.

"I'm sorry…how…how many do you thing eh…" Ellie heaved a deep sigh "I don't know how many of us made it, I've been wandering these woods since the attack but I haven't seen anyone" she held up the ball of cloth in front of Clementine's face "open your mouth" Clementine gave her a dubious look "why?"

"Stalkers are attracted to sounds, this will make sure that you don't make so much noise when you scream now open your mouth" feeling a bit insulted by Ellie's assumption that she would scream in pain Clementine considered protesting, to tell Ellie that she was not going to scream, that she was tough and that she had been hurt before and she could take a bit of pain, but one look at the curved needle and then at her wounded arm and she thought better of it.

It was a very odd and uncomfortable feeling having a mouth full of cloth, not to mention the taste was horrible, Clementine tried not to think about where it might have been "bite down on it hard and try not to swallow" the brunette advised "and try not to move if you can" she placed the edge of the needle against the skin "alright…here we go" she said sounding a bit too nervous for Clementine's liking.

She winced when the needle penetrated her skin, the pain was even worse when the needle exited the side of the gash and pierced into the raw flesh on the other side and she screamed like she had never done before and her eyes filled with tears.

She screamed and cried until her throat was raw and her tears had dried up and despite her best attempt she could not keep her arm still, this caused her even more pain when her movement made Ellie missed her mark and accidentally push the needle deep into her arm.

It felt like it took forever and she had rarely been as relieved as when she heard Ellie say "there, just need to bandage it up and we're done".

Clementine shakily sat up and pulled the cloth out of her mouth, she took a long deep breath of fresh air then she spat several times in order to get the taste out of her mouth without much success.

When she was done she studied her now sewed up arm, she was no expert at stitching but she thought Ellie had done a fairly good job, her stitches were much better than the ones Clementine herself had done when Crista had taught her.

Ellie held out a roll of bandages to her "do you need my help or can you do it yourself?" Clementine took the offered bandages with her good hand "I can do it, I'm not completely helpless you know" she said, Ellie gave her wide smile then grabbed her backpack and bow and walked over to Sam and started to pull out the arrows from the dead dog's body.

As she bandaged up her arm Clementine thought about her situation and how lucky she had been to meet someone as kind and sharing as Ellie, most people now days would have focus on survival – in other word stealing what she had – over helping her.

When she was done she looked up at the crouching Ellie and – as a side note saw confirmation of her earlier suspicion that Ellie had more weapons on her in the form of the handle of a gun sticking out of the back of her pants – what she saw made her jaw drop open.

Ellie was slowly and methodically flaying the hide from Sam's body, "what are you doing" she blurted out incredulously, "what does it look like? I'm skinning the dog" Ellie said without taking her eyes away from her work, "why?" Clementine asked with perhaps a bit of outrage in her voice.

"When was the last time you ate fresh meat?" Ellie asked, again not turning to look at her but continued to skin the dog "and try to keep your voice down" she added as an afterthought.

The question took Clementine by surprise and she had to think for a bit, when was the last time she had eaten fresh meat? Crista had managed to catch some kind of weasel yesterday but they never got the fire hot enough to cook it before the bandits showed up, there was that rabbit that they ate maybe two days ago? Or was it four? She wasn't sure.

Ellie seemed to sense Clementine's uncertainty "food is scares and fresh meat is even rarer so we have to eat whatever kind of it we can get our hands on nowadays, even if we don't like it" a horrible feeling gripped Clementine at the sound of those words, "whatever kind of meat we can get our hands on" she repeated in a whisper and the memories of the St John's and their dairy farm flooded into her mind, the meat they had tried to feed them that night, the human meat that had come from one of their group members – she could still see him in her nightmares sometimes, crawling into the dinner room pale and legless leaving a smeary trail of blood in his wake – and then there was the barn with the blood covered back room and the freezer, the salt lick, the crushed head.

A cold shiver went through her that had nothing to do with the cold, was Ellie a cannibal? Was that why she had saved Clementine? To keep her as extra rations, she looked for her knife in the direction she had thrown it but it was gone, _did she take it when I wasn't paying attention?_ She looked back at the red haired girl and her unease increased, she could try to run away but she would probably not get far if Ellie gave chase.

The rational part of her brain told her not to jump to conclusions, there was a chance that she had misunderstood her, well there was only one way to find out, she swallowed then took a deep calming breath and spoke "even other people".

"Even other people what?" Ellie asked as she pealed of more skin from the dog "eat whatever kind of meat we can get our hands on…even other people" Clementine repeated, Ellie's head whipped around so fast that Clementine could hear her neck crack, her face was pale and she had a look of shock on it, she didn't say anything just stared at Clementine with eyes wide in horror.

"Was that what you meant by 'whatever kind of meat we can get even if we don't like it'?" she asked her fingers digging into the trampled earth and closed them into a fist, if Ellie decided to attack she would try to throw the earth into her eyes as a distraction, that would buy her a head start.

"What the…hell no" Ellie shouted ignoring her own warning of keeping their voices down "that's fucking sick, we're the hell did you get that fucked up idea from" she continued sounding angry and revolted by the very thought, Clementine on the other hand felt relief, she had misunderstood her.

In order to explain to Ellie how she had got that "fucked up idea" she told her about the St John's and what had happened to her and her group on the dairy farm, how the St John's had pretended to be kind and offer them protection and food at their farm, how they had trick some of them into eating parts of one of their own and how they had locked them up in the freezer and how they had escaped.

As Clementine told her story Ellie finished skinning the dog – Clementine had tried not to look at her whiles she did it – disembowel it and cut – what little meat it had on it – to pieces and started a fire by using some of the boxes and papers from the broken Volkswagen bus.

When she began roasting the meat Ellie had had a hungry look in her eyes every time she looked at it but when the story was finished it had been replaced by revolution "man…tricking people to eat their own friends, that's seriously fucked up" Ellie said.

"Yeah" Clementine agreed trying to look at everything except the meat crackling over the fire between the two girls, "you know, I don't feel like eating meat right now" Ellie said, Clementine nodded she didn't feel like eating meat ether.

Ellie pulled out a battered plastic lunch box from her backpack and although there hadn't been much meat on Sam it was enough to fill the box to the brim, she replaced the box in the pack and pulled out two cans, two spoons and a can opener, ones they were both opened she showed a spoon in each and handed one to Clementine.

"Pea soup" Clementine read of the label, it looked more like yellow brown mush to her eyes then soup with a few peas stuck in here and there, "yeah, I know it doesn't look like it but if you boil it in water it turns to soup but I don't have anything to boil it in or enough water to spare for that matter" Ellie said.

Ones they heated it up the pea soup turned out to be quite good even without the boiled water, they ate it in silence – Clementine was too busy shoving the mushy soup into her mouth to speak and it didn't seem that Ellie want to talk just in case the subject turned gruesome and ruined her appetite again.

When they were both done they threw the empty cans into the oil barrel that the previous owners of the camp had turned into a makeshift garbage bin, Ellie took a look around but quickly came to the conclusion that the camp held nothing of value, after that they put out the fire and left.

By then Clementine was feeling a bit better, her arm still hurt and she still felt a bit cold but at least her stomach was full and her clothes had mostly dried from the fire plus she now had Ellie jacket to help keep her warm, it was a bit too big for her but that didn't trouble her much.

"Were are we going" Clementine asked the older girl beside her, Ellie was scanning the forest and did not look at her when she answered "I set out some traps earlier and I want to check on them" she said and stepped over a fallen tree "after that's done I don't know" she shrugged "get the hell out of this forest sounds like a good idea".

"And then what" Clementine asked a little more hesitant this time, she wasn't sure she wanted to leave the forest just yet, Crista could still be around and if she could Clementine would find her "head west" Ellie answered.

"What's out west?" Clementine asked, Ellie suddenly stopped and held up her hand for silence, both girls scanned the trees but neither saw nor heard anything but the wind rustling the trees, after a few seconds they both relaxed, "I thought I heard something but it most have been my imagination, what were you saying? Oh right out west, there's this big camp in Jackson County Wyoming, that's where my group were heading before we were attacked".

Clementine frowned, her geography wasn't the best – she had only been in first grade when this whole mess started – so she wasn't sure how far it was to Wyoming "that's…a long way from here right?" she asked to which she received a nod of confirmation from Ellie "about half the country from here".

"Why were you going there instead of north to Wellington" Clementine asked, Ellie gave her a perplexed look "Wellington?" Clementine nodded "yeah, it's this big camp up in Michigan, at least that's what Crista told me".

"Never heard of it" Ellie said, she removed her backpack and pulled out a small map book from one of its compartments, " _just how much does she have in that thing_ " Clementine wondered as Ellie skimmed through the book until she reached Michigan.

After several minutes of staring into the book and turning a few page Ellie said "are you sure it was in Michigan? I can't find any Wellington there at all" a sliver of fear crawled up Clementine's spine at those words, "no it has to be there, you must have missed it" she took the book from Ellie who did not resist or protest, her golden eyes scanned every inch of the maps of Michigan and found nothing.

Had Clementine heard wrong or had Crista been wrong or was there no Wellington to begin with, had they been traveling north all this time for nothing, Clementine's heart sank in her chest.

Ellie took the book from her unresisting hands and put her hand on Clementine's shoulder, "hey" Clementine looked up at the older girl, "since I left Boston I have seen several camps" she said and closed the book and put it back in her pack "and most of those was located far from any city or town so they weren't on any maps".

Clementine stared at her stupidly then she mentally kicked herself, of course how could she have been so stupid, Wellington most have been built after the outbreak so it wouldn't be on any map, then another thought struck her that lowered her spirit again, even if they got to Michigan how were they going to find it?

Clementine was brought out of her wondering by Ellie patting her on the back, "come on let's go check on those traps, we can figure out where we should go later" the older girl said and turned and walked off, Clementine stared at her back for several seconds then she hurried to catch up.

For a time, they walked in silence watching their surroundings for anything that could be a threat, Clementine hadn't really been in the mood for silence, she wanted to talk but she wasn't sure what they could talk about that wouldn't be a painful subject for the other girl, but then again what wasn't a painful subject nowadays.

Before she could ask any question however Ellie broke the silence "hey Clem" the younger girl's golden eyes look up at the other girl "I never asked, where are you from?"

"Atlanta" she answered, "damn you've walked a long way" Ellie said sounding very impressed, Clementine only nodded, it was true she had walked a long way to get where she was now, but the miles had come at a cost and Clementine's friends had paid the price for her with their lives.

There was a short silence before Ellie asked another question "when you talked about those St John's bastards you never mentioned your parents, did they…" Clementine looked down at the ground, "they went away on vacation and never came back".

"Well…they might still be" Ellie started to say but Clementine cut her off "they're not, my group and I went to Savannah to find them" that wasn't entirely true, most of them had gone to find a boat but there was no point in dragging up that detail.

"It was only after most of my group was killed that I found them with a herd of walkers" Clementine looked up at Ellie who looked sympathetically back at her "sorry" she said and Clementine knew she meant it "so am I" Clementine said and she whipped her eyes "what about you? Where are your parents?"

"Well mom died shortly after I was born and dad left her long before that – the asshole – I don't know what happened to him" she shrugged "he's probably dead, I grew up in an orphanage".

"In Boston?"

"Yup"

"What was it like…living in an orphanage I mean?" Clementine had a difficult time imagining what it would be like growing up in a building full of other kids and without ever meeting her parents, Ellie shrugged "it wasn't too bad I suppose – considering the hell we live in now – I mean I had clean clothes, a warm bed and four meals a day" she looked thoughtful for a few seconds "school sucked though, most of the older kids were assholes and my roommate snored like you wouldn't believe" a cartoon like image of Ellie laying in the lower part of a bunk-bed with bloodshot eyes and a pillow pressed against her head formed in Clementine's mind, she giggled, Ellie gave her a smile, she probably thought that Clementine found her complaints funny.

After a short pause in which Clementine stopped giggling she asked "what was it like during the outbreak in Boston?" Ellie's posture stiffened slightly "probably the same as it was in Atlanta" she answered in a tone that told Clementine that she didn't want to talk about it but Clementine was curious so she said "I lived a bit outside of Atlanta so I don't know what happened in the city".

Ellie sighed "you sure you want to know, it's not a nice story" Clementine nodded that yes she wanted to know, she had shared a bit of her story – one of the worst part – after all it was only fair that Ellie did the same "you can give me the short version".

She looked more than a bit hesitant but then said "alright I'll try" with the barest hint of reluctance in her voice and she launched into her tale about how the walkers slowly appeared, how they caused panic and confusion, how scared and paranoid cops started shooting anyone they suspect to be a walker, many times creating more walkers, demonstration against these random police shootings quickly turns into violent riots and shops and houses were looted and burned.

The riots became breading grounds for walkers and the infection quickly spread out of control, within a few days the walkers outnumbered the police more than twenty to one and decimated what was left of their numbers to the point that they ceased to exist, without the police to enforce law and order the city descended into complete anarchy.

The majority of the citizens had by then tried to flee the city but many did not get out in time and those that was left formed into gangs and went to war against other survivors for resources that became harder and harder to get.

"And you were stuck in all that?" Clementine interrupted her at one point when she described how two gangs had ended up in a fire fight over a few cans of food in a corner store a stone's throw away from the orphanage, Ellie nodded "didn't you try to get out?"

"By the time the ones in charge of the orphanage decided to evacuate us out of the city it was too late, everyone and their mothers had had the same idea and due to stalker attacks all the roads were clogged full with abandoned vehicles, there was no way out" she said grimly.

Clementine thought for a second "what about boats or trains?" Ellie shook her head, "there was no boats left and none of us knew how to drive a train plus we would need to walk through a city full of stalkers and trigger happy gangs to get to either, anyway about a month later most of the stalkers had left the city and then what was left of the national guard and the military arrived, by that time all but a hand full of groups had been eaten by stalkers or killed by other survivors".

"And you were a part of one of those groups".

"Well I wasn't really much a part of the group, I was more like…under their protection, the leader Marlene knew my mom so when she found me and a few other kids – all the adults had either died or abandoned them and most of the kids had been killed during food runs – still alive in the orphanage she took us to her camp to protect us".

"What happened then? After the military came I mean" Clementine asked, Ellie's mouth twisted into a scowl and she continued her tale of how the military under the command of general Spears with their superior numbers and weapons swept in and took command of what was left of the city and gave all the survivors a choice, either submit to their rule, leave the city or be destroyed, one group refused them and they were quickly made examples of, after that most groups submitted – those who didn't left the city in a hurry – and was forced to surrender all their weapons, food and other equipment to the military.

General Spears then ordered a huge portion of the survivors that was physically able – even children – to gather material and construct a barricade along highway 93 from McConnell park to Columbus Park making it a quarantine zone to keep the walkers and other survivors out, the rest of them was ordered to plowed up all the parks and other open areas and turn them into farms so as to "grow our future" as Spears called it.

But Spears building plans wasn't finished not by a long shot, the barricade turned out to be nothing more than a temporary defense for as soon as it was finished Spears ordered that a huge concrete wall with guard towers and a spike filled moat be built behind the barricade in order to make the zone into a fortress.

Another of Spears projects was to get the local power plants up and running again and to create a fishing fleet so that they could get food from the sea and – to Marlene's and many others outrage – he also started a mandatory military school so as to train – "brainwash" as Marlene called it – the next generation into loyal citizens and soldiers.

But all those plans paled in comparison to his most ambitious idea, to extend the barricade all the way to the Charles river in the north so that he could get more land to farm food for his future army and then continue the expansion to the rest of the city, he planned to do this by expanding it gradually over time and set up checkpoints in key positions both as a means to control the population as well as to isolate any walker outbreaks that might occur inside the QZ.

To keep the growing population in check – for many smaller groups of survivors sought refuge inside the now well protected QZ – Spear preying on their fears of the walkers and bandits and with the help of propaganda he tightened his grip on the city, most were willing to surrender the freedom they had had in the old world for protection in the new one and only a few dared to speak out against him and his regime, those few demanded that Spears step down and democracy be restored, many of them were arrested not long afterwards and was never seen again.

But not all of Spears enemies were taken however, Marlene and a few others that managed to elude capture formed a rebel group inside the QZ calling themselves the fireflies, they started to undermine Spears military rule by almost any means necessary, after two years of planning the fireflies had gathered enough information, manpower and weapons to try to assassinate Spears and take control of the QZ – which had now grown to more than twice its previous size – but they were betrayed by one of their own who informed Spears about their plans, Spears responded with brutal efficiency, his forces attacking almost every single firefly hideout in the QZ and killed everyone there.

This devastating attack forced Marlene and the few people she had left to leave the QZ through a secret tunnel they had built, Ellie and a few others - who had either ended up on Spears shit list or just didn't want to live under his tyranny - joined them and they headed south.

"We picked up a few people and cars along the way, this one guy, Joel, said that his brother was a part of a big camp up in Jackson County so we decided to go there, things were looking up until we reached this goddamn forest" she finished and kicked a stone on the ground, it turned out that the stone was rooted to the ground so rather than sending it flying Ellie hurt her foot.

Ellie was in a bad mood after that, partly because Clementine hadn't been able to stop herself from laughing at Ellie as she hopped around on one foot cursing at the top of her voice, Clementine didn't think it a good idea to talk to her after that so the rest of the walk was spent almost in complete silence.

The traps were not as close as Clementine had hoped and it took them about half an hour to get to the first one, to Ellie's annoyance – which she showed by cursing – and Clementine's disappointment it turned out that it was empty.

It took them almost another hour of trudging through the forest to get to the second one - which also turned out to be empty - and the third which held the bloody remains off a squirrel – the victim of a walker or some other predator.

By the time they were heading to the fourth and last trap Clementine wasn't feeling too good, in fact she felt ill, she was burning up and freezing at the same time and she was also feeling light headed.

"Are we there yet" she panted and whipped sweat from her brow, Ellie whose mood – that had been foul ever since the stone incident – had darkened even more since they found the dead squirrel and had been too busy brooding to noticed that Clementine was lagging behind said "we're almost there" over her shoulder, at that moment Clementine stumbled on a tree root and fell down on all four.

When Ellie saw what had happened she was at Clementine's side in an instant and helped her into a sitting position against a rock "you okay?" she asked her voice concerned "yeah, I'm fine, just a bit tired" Clementine answered groggily, Ellie's frown at her and placed her palm against Clementine's forehead "no you're not, you're burning up" Ellie looked at her critically and then at the surrounding area, when she didn't see any walkers she unslung her backpack, after a little digging she pulled out a half full bottle of water and a white pill "for the fever" she said, Clem took it and washed it down with the water, "we'll take a break here so you can rest for a bit" Ellie said as Clem whipped her mouth on her sleeve.

"No, I can rest when we have checked the last trap" Clementine said and tried to stand up only to slump back to the ground, Ellie put her hands on Clem's shoulders when she tried to stand up a second time and pushed her down "this isn't the fucking time to be stubborn" she said sternly "this isn't the old days were you can just shrug this kind of thing off, you could die from this and if you do then I'll have too…" she trailed off with a look of pain on her face, she didn't have to finish the sentence, they both knew what she had left unsaid.

" _You have to shoot me, honey_ " Clementine's heart jolted in her chest as the horrible memory from Savannah forced itself to the forefront of her mind, Lee sitting on the floor with his only remaining hand handcuffed to a radiator, his skin unnaturally pale and sickly, his brown eyes staring pleadingly at her through the grogginess of the infection that was slowly taking his life.

Clementine felt tears in her eyes and all the fight went out of her, shooting Lee had been the hardest and most painful thing she had ever done in her short life, it had been that moment when she fully realized just how hellish the world had become and that the only way for her to survive in it was to harden her heart and never make any mistakes ever again, Ellie had probably had her own moment like that and Clementine didn't want her to have to go through it again.

"You're right, I'll rest" Clem conceded whipping her eyes, Ellie looked a bit surprised but pleased, she gave her a smile and looked like she was about to say something but Clem spoke before she could "while I do you should go and check on the trap" Ellie's smile turned into a scowl "fuck that, I'm not leaving you here alone".

"If your trap has caught something you need to get to it before something else does" she said a little more seriously, Ellie brooded over her words for several seconds – pacing back and forth and bitting her lower lip – then she pulled out her gun and handed it to Clementine "you know how to use one of these?!" it was more of a statement then a question, Clem nodded "good, I'll be back as fast as I can" she said and jogged off.

Clementine watched her as she disappeared into the bushes, when she was out of sight she slumped back against the rock, her arms and legs felt like they were made of jelly and now that she was sitting down she found it difficult to keep her eyes open, she was so tired.

In an attempt to stop herself from dosing off she inspected the gun she had been given, it wasn't a big model which made it perfect for her young hands, she took out the magazine for inspection, it held four 9mm bullets with one already in the chamber, she put the magazine back into the gun.

With nothing else to occupy herself with her gaze drifted over the area for signs of threats but she saw nothing but bushes and trees, she did this several more times over the next couple of minutes but still saw nothing and the more she did it the heavier her eyelids felt.

She leaned her head back against the rock, her eyelid drooped shut but she immediately opened them again, she knew that she had to stay awake, if she fell asleep and a walker came she was as good as dead, she tried to keep her eyes open but she was just so tired and in the end they closed and her world went black.

She woke up with a start by the sound of rustling bushes and running footsteps, even with her mind still a bit groggy from her slumber she instinctively grabbed Ellie's gun and shakily raised it in the direction of the sound, the next second Ellie burst out from between two trees running at full speed towards Clementine with what looked like a small deer slung over her shoulders.

"Come on get up, we got to go" she panted and grabbed the smaller girl by the arm and pulled her to her feet's and dragged her behind her, Clementine was about to ask what was wrong when Ellie said "stalkers, a fucking bunch of them and their coming this way".

It was only then that Clementine heard the raspy growl and moaning sound coming from the same direction that Ellie had, Clementine almost stumbled when she looked back and saw a fat walker – its entrails was hanging out of its torn up belly and it looked like something had clawed off half its face – accompanied by four others shambling past the rock that had been her resting place and towards them with several more stumbling their way out of some bushes.

After a couple of minutes of running they stopped, Clementine was by then exhausted and out of breath, she had to lean against an nearby tree for support, next to her Ellie was looking back the way they had come "I think…we lost them" she said between deep breaths, her words proved to be premature however as at that moment a tall walker who was missing half of its left arm stumbled out from behind a tree, it was quickly joined by five others, how they could have missed seeing them or smelt them Clementine had no idea.

"Oh for fuck sake" Ellie exclaimed, she grabbed hold of Clementine's jacked and tried to pulled her into another run but Clementine was too exhausted to move, she didn't even manage a single steep before her legs gave out and she collapsed onto the ground almost dragging Ellie down with her, the older girl grabbed a new hold on Clementine's arm and tried to pull her onto her feet's "come on, you got to get up" Ellie shouted, Clementine tried but it was to no avail, her legs refused to support her weight.

"I…I can't" she panted, "yes you can, now get the fuck up" Ellie yelled and yanked at her arm painfully but it did no good, her legs refused to support her, Clementine saw in her peripheral vision the walkers shuffling closer, it wouldn't be long before they reached them.

With an expression of panic on her face, Ellie looked down at Clementine and then at the walkers and then back at Clementine and her face hardened, a feeling of dread and despair overtook Clementine when Ellie let go of her arm, "s _he's going to leave me, she's going to leave me to die so she can escape"_.

Clementine stared pleadingly at Ellie before the ever increasing volume of the walker's rasping moans drew her horrified attention.

Even though she was exhausted she somehow managed to find the strength to pull out the gun from her jeans and using both hands she was able shakily aim it in the direction of the closest walker although she doubted that she would be able to hit it in the head, "if you shoot you'll just draw more of them to us" Ellie said, her voice sounding very forced like she was trying not to panic herself but Clementine mind took more note of the word she had used, " _us?"_

The deer dropped from Ellie's shoulders and landed with a thud on the ground as she unslung her bow, she steeped in front of Clementine as a shield and with practiced efficiency she quickly nocked an arrow, drew back the string, aimed and let it fly.

The arrow burrowed deep into the one armed walker's skull, it jerked and let out a final rasping growl before it collapsed onto the ground, by then Ellie had already nocked another arrow and was aiming at the second walker, she released the string and it too collapsed.

Clementine saw Ellie take aim at another walker, like the previous two it jerked as its skull and brain was penetrated by an arrow…that entered the head from the side.

Both Ellie and Clementine whipped their heads in the direction the arrow had come from and saw two men, the younger of the two – a brown haired man dressed in an orange shirt and worn jeans who Clementine guessed was in his mid-twenties – was charging towards the walkers with a machete drawn and ready whiles the other one – a man with a clean shaved head and black goatee dressed in a green jacket and pants who looked to be in his late forties – was reloading a crossbow.

Clementine could hardly believe what she was seeing, could she be this lucky? what was the odds of getting saved twice in one day out in the middle of nowhere?

The sound of the young man's running footsteps drew the attention of two of the remaining walkers who turned to face him.

Ellie capitalized on this and let lose her arrow on the one that was still stumbling towards them, it hit it right in the left eye, its head jerked back from the force of the arrow and it almost lost its balance but to Clementine's dismay it did not fall but continued to shuffle towards them.

By then the young man had reached the other walkers and side steeping the nearest of them when it tried to grab him, he proceeded to decapitate it with one clean swing.

The other one fell less than two seconds later when the old man put an arrow in its head, by then Ellie had nocked her bow with another arrow and taken aim at the last walker who fell less than a second later with another arrow in its head.

"Is that all of them" the older of the two men asked as he walked towards them "yeah it think so" the younger man said and turned towards the two girls "are you girls al-whoa! whoa! whoa!" he exclaimed and took several steps back in shock at the sight of Ellie with her bow drawn and an arrow aimed right at him.

"Get the fuck back the both of you" she said loudly.

"Easy girl" the old man said calmly, his reloaded crossbow aimed at her.

"Look, just calm down an-" the young one began to say but Ellie cut him off "shut up pretty boy".

"Ellie what are you doing?" Clementine whispered shocked at Ellie's action, these men had helped them why was she being so hostile? "protecting us" Ellie whispered back "Clem do these two look familiar to you?" Clementine then knew what she was getting at, she studied both men for several seconds but neither of them looked familiar to her "they don't look like any of the people that attacked me and Crista" Clementine whispered back, Ellie did not lower her bow "but for all we know these guys could be their buddy's or friends to the bandits that attacked my group".

"We're not bandits, we haven't attacked anybody, we're just people trying to help" the young man said calmly.

"Yeah right, more like trying help yourself to our stuff" Ellie snorted derisively.

"Use your head girl, if we wanted you're stuff we wouldn't have helped you at all, hell we could have just let you fight them lurkers on your own and kill whoever was left standing" the old man said "we could just as easily have shoot you dead the minute we saw you but we didn't".

A tenses silence descended over the area as Ellie and Clementine pondered the man's points, it was true that if he and the other man wanted to steal their food, medicine and weapons it would be counterproductive to help them, that was of course if stealing their stuff was all they wanted.

Ellie seemed to have gotten to the same conclusion, in truth she had reached an even darker conclusion then Clementine, one she would not say out laud in front of the younger girl so instead she said "maybe but if you let the stalkers kill us you would have lost the deer as well" she jerked her head in the direction of the fawn she had unceremoniously dropped on the ground "they love fresh meat and there was a good chance one of them would have sunk its rotten teeth into it long before you could have killed them all".

The men looked at the deer and both of them looked genuinely surprised to see it "you snagged that with only a bow?" the old man asked and Clementine thought he sounded impressed "yeah, I'm a dead good shoot with a bow" Ellie said, the old man recognize the threat, he nodded his face serious ones more.

"Guys I think we should talk about this someplace else" the young man said sounding suddenly very tense, "yeah, I don't think s…" Ellie started to say but suddenly cut herself off.

The wind had changed and it brought with it the horrible odder of rotten flesh that was even more potent than the one coming from the walkers they had just killed, the smell was followed by the all to familiar rasping moans of walkers.

Looking back Clementine saw to her dismay three badly decomposed walkers shambling towards them, she also saw with rising panic that the three had brought friends a lot of friends, more then fifteen of them, far too many for them to take on even if the two men helped.

"Fucking hell" she heard Ellie murmur in a fearful voice, but her fear was nothing compared to Clementine's who unlike Ellie could not runaway but was stuck almost helpless on the ground.

"Come on we got to go" the old man shouted and grabbed Ellie by the shoulder but she shrugged him off "Clementine's exhausted, she can't walk and I'm not leaving without her" the old man grunted "Luke grab the girl and go, I'll take the deer".

The young man now identified as Luke crouched down by Clementine "come on kid we got to move" he said as he took her in his arms and with little difficulty lifted her of the ground and started running, Ellie followed right behind him with the older man – the deer slung over his shoulder – bringing up the rear.

As they ran Clementine saw several more walkers closing in from both left and right, they had undoubtedly been drawn by all the noise but most of them was to slow or too far away to be a threat, four of them did get close however but Luke and the others expertly avoided them or in the case of one – who tried to grab Ellie – was pushed to the ground.

After almost ten minutes of mad running they stopped to catch their breaths "I…I think…I think we're safe" the old man panted as he leaned himself against a tree.

"Yeah…yeah we're good" Luke said after a quick scan of the area.

He looked over at Ellie who stood doubled over breathing heavily with her hands on her knees for support "hey, you alright?" he asked.

"Yeah…" she panted "just give me a minute…fuck…I'm starting to get really fucking tired of running away from those things".

"You…and me both…kid" the old man puffed from his spot by the tree his breathing slowly going back to normal, Ellie looked over at Clementine "hey Clem, you alright?"

Clementine raised her hand into a thumbs up "just tired" she said sleepily and leaned her head against Luke's chest, his shirt felt warm and dry against her cheek and she imagined that she could hear his heart beat beneath the fabric.

After a few more seconds spent catching their breaths Luke spoke up drawing everyone's attention, "hey, with all the tension back there we didn't get a chance to introduce ourselves, I'm Luke and that's Pete" he said and nodded to his companion who gave a fatherly smile and a "hi there" to the girls.

"I'm Clementine and that's Ellie" Clementine said sleepily from her position in Luke's arms, Ellie didn't look to happy about her name being given away but didn't say anything.

"It's nice to meet you two" Luke said with a friendly smile, Clementine thought he looked like a nice guy, he certainly acted like one but then again appearances were deceiving, the St John's and the stranger had thought her that, Pete straitened up from his position by the tree and said "now that the introductions are done, how do you girls want to do this?"

Every muscle in Ellie's body tensed up at his words, when she looked up she had probably expected to see an arrow pointed strait at her but the old man hadn't move from the spot, he hadn't even tried to raise his crossbow in her direction, "we're not too far from our cabin" Pete continued calmly "if you two want to you can stay the night".

Ellie studied the old man, no doubt trying to tell if he was lying or not, his face was however unreadable and didn't give anything away to her, she turned her gaze to Luke who gave her a friendly smile, after a few seconds she looked to Clementine who stared right back at her with tired eyes, finally she looked up at the sky and the dark gray clouds that was blowing in from the east, she chewed on her lower lip then asked "what's it going cost us?"

"This deer, well most of it anyway, you'll get a good share of it I promise" Pete said and hefted the dead animal on his shoulder "and that you don't cause any trouble in the house off course" he added as an afterthought.

Ellie looked back at Clementine who after a few seconds gave a weak nod, Ellie bit her lip then said "alright it's a deal but if you try to double-cross us I'll take you with me, go it" the old man nodded then he said "I understand you need to be careful around strangers especially these days but that's quit the hostile attitude you have there missy".

Ellie crossed her arms "bandits attacked my group two days ago and scattered us to the wind so excuse me for being "hostile"" she said heatedly, both the men shared a quick glans with each other, Pete scratched his chin "hmm…these folks that attacked you…did they mention what they were after" Ellie shook her head "no, they just started shooting at us without warning when we had stopped to repair one of our trucks".

"So you didn't hear them say or shout anything" Ellie shook her head again "no, I was too busy trying not to get my fucking head blown off" she said a little angrier that before, she also looked puzzled, she was probably wondering why he cared so much about what they could have said, she turned to Clementine "hey Clem, did the ones that attacked your group say anything?" Clementine raised her head with great reluctance from its place against Luke's chest "not really, I think they just wanted food, we were cooking some kind of weasel" she said in a voice so low it was almost a whisper then laid her head back against Luke's chest.

Luke shook his head in disbelief "they attacked you for a weasel, damn that's low" Pete's brow furrowed "hold on, you two aren't from the same group?"

"No, we just met each other a couple of hours ago" Clementine said not bothering to even move her head this time, "really" Pete's eyes wandered between the two girl several times before they settled back on Clementine "was she this distrusting to you when you met?" he asked and ignored the glare Ellie was giving him.

"No" Clementine answered, her eyelids were almost closed now, she felt like she would dose off at any second now "she saved me" the two men turned to Ellie for conformation, Ellie sighed "she was being attacked by a wild dog".

"A dog?" Pete stared at her in disbelief.

"Yes, a dog" she said exasperatedly.

"Man it's been an eternity since I last saw a dog" Luke said sounding a bit envious.

"Well, your going to have to wait a bit longer to see another one" Ellie said "I killed it".

"You killed it!" Luke exclaimed in shocked outrage, "and what would you have done if a dog attacked you?" Pete asked sounding a bit annoyed at his friend's outburst "I don't know but you don't…you don't kill dogs" Luke finished weakly with a sad look on his face, Ellie looked at him like he was an idiot, "you do if it tries to bit your fucking arm off, what part of it attacked her didn't you understand" Luke didn't answer.

"Come on, the sun's setting and it ain't a good idea to be out here in the dark" Pete said, "we have a doctor at our camp that can take a look at Clementine" he turned in the direction of the setting sun "this way" and with that they all started walking with the old man in the lead.

After about two minutes of walking Luke toke up a position next to Ellie who was keeping a close eye on her surroundings, most likely spying for walkers "hey" he said his voice ones again calm, Ellie threw him a quick sideways look then looked back at the forest.

"I'm sorry about my outburst back there" he said apologetically "my family used to own a dog before all this and…well I have a soft spot for them", Ellie didn't respond to his words but kept looking around, "did you have any pets before this?" he asked trying to get a conversation going, no doubt in an attempt to ease the tension between them but ones again Ellie didn't respond "I hate to break this to you kid but I'm an expert at talking to girls who don't want to talk to me" he said and smiled.

"Yeah you got plenty of practice" Pete said over his shoulder with a grin as they headed up a small hill, Ellie covered her mouth in an attempt to stifle her laughter, Luke gave Pete a deadpan look "thanks Pete" he said dryly, Pete's grin widened "anytime".

"And there it is" Pete said when they had reached the top, before them the forest opened up into a wide circular clearing, in the middle of it stood a two story high wooden cabin, roughly two years had passed since the dead started walking and whiles the rest of the world had gone to hell in a hand-basket this place looked like it had remained completely untouched, all the windows and doors were whole and the white paint on the frames didn't look that old, the place gave off a feeling of safety and in the light of the setting sun it looked even more serene, "whoa" Ellie murmured in amazement as she took in the sight before her.

"It's pretty neat huh?" Luke asked.

"Yeah, yeah it is" Ellie answered awestruck "what do you think Clem?"

But Clementine didn't answer her, long deep breathes could be heard coming from the small girl in Luke's arms, she was fast asleep.

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Wow my first fanfiction ever and it took an eternity to make, hopefully the next chapter will be done quicker.

Please leave a review and tell me what you think and if you have any advice for me I would gladly take it.


	2. Chapter 2

Here it is chapter 2 finally, sorry for the long wait, I had originally planed for this chapter to be finished at the end of February at the latest and now its April, what can I say I'm a slow writer and the fact that English isn't my first language doesn't make it any better also this chapter was a pain in the ass to write, I think I rewrote it almost three times and I still don't think I got it right.

Anyways enough about that, hopefully you will enjoy this chapter.

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Chapter 2

Ellie's mind was churning, she still wasn't sure if she had made the right choice in trusting Pete and Luke, sure they looked like nice people and they had saved Clem's life, but even so she couldn't get rid of the nagging feeling in the back of her skull that told her that trusting these people was a bad idea that was going to come back and kick her in the ass and that they should turn around and go back into the forest.

The rational part of her mind however said " _go where? Rain clouds are moving in and you have no camp or shelter to protect you from it, the whole forest is infested with stalkers that you have hardly any protection against, especially if they swarm you in the dark, Clementine is too tired to travel on her own strength let alone defend herself and these people are offering a solution to all those problems, a warm house as protection from both the weather and the stalkers and they have a doctor that can help Clementine a hell of a lot more than you can_ ".

Ellie bit her lower lip in uncertainty " _what would you have done if you were here Marlene?_ " she wondered not for the first time.

She would have felt a lot better about the situation they were in if she still had her gun, but unfortunately Clementine still had it, Ellie could see the gun handle sticking out of the back of her pants, since she knew she wouldn't be able to take the gun back unnoticed she had considered the idea of asking to get it back but quickly dismissed it, she doubted that either of the two men would like the idea of arming her even more, especially after she had threaten to kill them if they tried to double cross her.

It didn't take them long to walk down the hill and reach the cabin, as they got closer Ellie saw that a broad shouldered African American man was sitting on the stairs to the porch, he was dressed in a light brown jacket, a white shirt and dark jeans, his black hair was cut short and had started to turn gray at his temples whiles his goatee was almost completely gray.

He seemed to be cutting or carving something with a knife that Ellie couldn't see, he was so preoccupied with whatever he was doing that he didn't notice them until they had almost reached him, he sprang up from the stairs and stared at them from behind the lenses of his glasses with joy "Pete, Luke thank god you're alright" he said, his deep voice full of relief "you two had us all worried when you didn't come back when you said you would" then he eyed the sleeping form of Clementine in Luke's arms and Ellie who was standing next to Pete with slight unease "and…I'm guessing these two are the reason for your delay?"

"Yeah, we found them in the woods surrounded by lurkers not too far from here" Pete said and gave Ellie a light nudge forward, Ellie – who had been staring at the knife in Alvin's hand – wasn't prepared for it and almost lost her balance, she threw Pete a quick reproachful look before she returned her attention to Alvin, "Alvin this here is Ellie" Pete continued as if nothing had happened, she raised her hand in greeting "hi" she said a bit guardedly, although he still looked a bit unease Alvin managed to give her a friendly smile "it's nice to meet you" he greeted back at her.

Pete threw a thumb in the direction of Luke "and sleeping beauty over there is Clementine" at the mention of her name Clementine stirred but did not wake, she snuggled her head against Luke's shirt, "and she seems to have taken a liking to Luke" Pete smiled humorously "you always were popular with the ladies" he chuckled.

Luke did not seem to share Pete's humor of the situation "Pete this really isn't the time for this" he said in exasperation, Ellie wondered if maybe he was worried about Clementine's health – if so then her approval of him just went up – or maybe Pete had pulled one to many of those comments in the past and Luke had finally had enough of them "right, sorry just trying to lighten the mood a bit" Pete said apologetically, accepting that answer Luke looked back to Alvin "do you know where's Carlos is? We need him" he asked and gestured towards Clementine.

"Last I saw him he was upstairs with Sarah" Alvin answered and gave Clementine worried look, Luke gave him a nod then he moved to gently lay Clementine down on the ground and with quick steeps walked off towards the door of the cabin.

Seeing a chance to get her gun back, Ellie crouched down next to her new friend – who didn't seem to have notice that she was now laying on damp earth – removed her backpack and jacket and gently laid the latter over the sleeping girl as a blanket, Ellie looked up at Pete who – to her relief – was busy talking to Alvin.

"How bad is it?" Alvin asked, Pete sighed and put his hands on his hips "we don't know for sure, thats why we need Carlos" Pete's head moved from side to side as if he was looking for some one "where are the others?" he asked, keeping her eyes on two men Ellie gently moved her hand – now hidden under the jacket – in under Clementine in search of the gun.

"Becca is resting and Nick's been pacing back and forth in the living room for the past hour" an expression of relief formed on Pete's face as Ellie's fingers tightening around the handle of the gun and she slowly pulled it out "that's good, I was afraid he would storm off looking for us if we didn't come back in time" with the gun now free she quickly stuffed it in the back of her pants "he almost did but we managed to talk him out of it" Pete gave him a smile "thanks".

"I'm the one who should be thanking you, you guys are out there every day hunting for food whiles I spend my day's sit on my ass watching the house, good catch by the way" he said and nodded at the fawn slung over Pete's shoulder "it should feed us a day or two" Pete looked at Ellie "don't thank me, thank Ellie" he said with a smile "she's the one who did the excellent job of catching it" Ellie could feel her cheeks heating up at the sound of his words, she wasn't sure why she was blushing, maybe it was because she wasn't usually complemented for her hunting skills, in the group from Boston she wasn't allowed to go hunting at all, Marlene and the others insisted that it was "the grownups job" and that it was "too dangerous for a kid".

Alvin blinked in surprise "really?" he stared at her in astonishment "how the hell did you do it? We've been hunting in these woods for days and have hardly found shit" Ellie shrugged "I got lucky, its mother had walked into one of the traps I had set up so I jus-".

"Hold on" Pete interjected "are you telling me there is a full grown deer stuck in a trap out there" he asked sounding almost exited at the idea of a whole deer just waiting for them, Ellie hated that she had to dash his hope "not anymore" she said regretfully "she made so much noise she attracted a bunch of stalker, they were starting to tear her apart when I got there, I just barely managed to kill the fawn before it escaped and get out of there before they were on me" her words made Pete sigh and muttered a curse.

"Man, you must have nerves of steel kid, my guts wrench every time I see one of those things" Alvin said and shivered "and to kill a cute little deer on top of that, uh-uh no way I could have done that when I was your age".

His words made Ellie beam with pride, she liked it when people thought that she was dependable and that she could handle herself in a tough situation, "hey I don't like the idea of killing Bambi either" Ellie said "but meat is food and this girl needs to eat" Alvin chuckled approvingly at her words and scratched his chin with what looked to be a small piece of wood.

"What's that?" Ellie asked trying to eye the thing in his hand "oh this! we lost a pawn from our chess game so I'm trying to make a new one" he said and held out his hand so she could see it clearly, Ellie had never played chess – hell she didn't even know how to play chess – but she knew what the pawns were supposed to look like and the thing that Alvin held in his hand only vaguely resembled one, the base was uneven, its midsection was crooked as hell and the thing at the top looked more like a decapitated egg then a sphere "it's not going so well" Alvin admitted sheepishly.

The cabin door flew open and a man who looked to be in his early to mid-twenties with short black hair and a stubble beard rushed out with a rifle held at the ready in his hands, he was wearing a dark red cap, a dark blue t-shirt over a white long sleeved under shirt and blue jeans, his eyes zeroed in on Pete immediately "uncle Pete" he exclaimed his voice filled with concern, he hurried down the stairs.

"It's okay Nick, I'm alright" Pete said calmly as Nick stopped in front of him, relief washed over Nicks face when he heard those words and his body – that had up to then been tense – visibly relaxed "when I heard Luke say someone was bitten I thought…" he trailed off and a look of pain and grief crossed his face, Pete put his hand on Nick's shoulder "I know" he said and gave him a sad smile.

They stood like that for a few seconds then Nick with a look of realization murmured something under his breath and his eyes moved to Ellie.

"Ellie this here is my nephew Nick" Pete said not noticing that Nick was eying her critically, his gaze moved up and down Ellie's body – which Ellie found very unnerving – twice like he was looking for something "Nick this is Ellie" Pete continued, when Nick didn't seem to find whatever it was he was searching for he nodded his greetings at her which Ellie payed back with a nod of her own.

Nick's gaze then darted to Clementine, as his eyes moved up her body he tighten his grip on the rifle so that his knuckles turned white, with a horrible sense of foreboding Ellie moved her hand very slowly towards her gun, Nick's eyes halted on Clementine's left forearm – that was sticking out from under Ellie's jacket – or more specifically on the bit of bloody bandage that was sticking out from under her sleeve "and the girl on the ground there is Clementi-" but before Pete could finish the sentence Nick raised his rifle and aimed it at Clementine's head, cursing Ellie pulled her own gun but before she could aim it at Nick, Pete had pushed the muzzle of Nick's rifle away from Clementine.

Nick tugged the weapon out of his uncle's grip and tried ones again to aim it at the small girl's head only for Pete to ones more pushed it away "put the gun down boy!" Pete snapped angrily "she's bit uncle Pete!" Nick shouted back heatedly, staring at Pete with a mixture of incredulity and irritation "she needs to be-"

"She needs to be looked at!" Pete interrupted him.

"She going to turn, she needs to be put down now!" Nick snapped back.

"You'll have to go through me first" Ellie growled, Nick whipped his head around and found the barrel of Ellie's gun pointed strait at his face, surprised by this new threat Nick tried to raise his rifle but Pete ones again stopped him "Ellie put the gun away" Pete said grunting from the effort of stopping his nephew who hissed "let go of me Pete" between clenched teeth, Ellie however didn't move a muscle.

"Ellie" this time it was Alvin that spoke, he steeped in between the two parties his hands held up placatingly "lower the gun" she shook her head "I won't let him kill Clementine" seeing the steely determination in her eyes Alvin swallowed then said slowly and calmly "I understand that but starting a shootout here ain't going to help anybody, least of all Clementine" Ellie bit her lower lip in hesitation but she knew that he was right, if she started a fire fight here she and Clementine would most likely die, they were outnumbered and most likely outgunned to, slowly and very reluctantly she lowered her gun and stuck it into the back of her pants, Alvin let out a sigh of relief.

"Would someone mind telling me what the fuck in going on here" a new voice called out sharply from the direction of the cabin, an African-American woman in her mid-thirties with a short bush of curly brown hair was slowly walking down the stairs towards them, the women were dressed in a pair of gray jeans and a black long sleeved under shirt with a light blue t-shirt that stretched tightly over her pregnant belly, as she approached she eyed the two girls with suspicious hostility.

Pete and Nick broke apart at ones, the later giving the former an aggravated look "It's just two lost kids Rebecca, nothing to worry about" Alvin said in a calm voice although he seemed to have tensed up at her approach "yeah, we got this under control" Nike added hefting his rifle uncomfortably in their direction.

Rebecca however did not look assured by their words "like hell you do, did anyone even think to ask where they came from? For all we know they could be working for Carver".

Ellie's eyebrows rose in confusion " _Carver? who the hell is Carver?_ " she gave Pete an inquisitive look hoping for answers but he was to focused on speaking with Rebecca to notice.

"Look, all I know is that there were two kids whose been split from their groups and were surrounded by lurkers, we couldn't just leave them there to die and Ellie here said that Clementine's been bitten by a dog"

"And you believed that bullshit?" Rebecca sneered contemptuously "lurkers are the only thing that bites people around here, you should have just put the kid out of her misery right then and there" she continued as if shooting wounded kids were the most obvious thing in the world, her words and Nick's nod of agreement made Ellie's insides boil, she took a step forwards so that she was face to face with the pregnant women "hey, fuck you lady!".

Rebecca's face twist in anger "watch your mouth you little…" she shouted back but was interrupted by Pete who stepped between them and pushed them apart "alright everyone calm down" he said sternly, Rebecca and Ellie stared daggers at one another and would probably had continued to shout if not a newly woken and weary Clementine had chosen that moment to speak from her position on the ground "we're not wor-".

BANG

A gun shot echoed across the clearing interrupting her word and made everyone jump in surprise, with ears ringing everyone stared at the rifle in Nick's hands that was pointing in Clementine's direction, Nick for his part was staring wide eyed in shock at the hole in the ground where Clementine's hand had been only a few second earlier.

Ellie recovered first and was crouched down at Clementine's side in a heartbeat, "Clem are you alright?" Clementine responded to Ellie's question with a barely perceptible nod not taking her golden eyes off the gun that had nearly blown her hand off, Ellie whirled around and glared up at the dazed Nick and saw to her satisfaction Pete jerked the rifle out of his nephew's unresisting hands "keep your finger off the trigger, boy!" he shouted furiously.

The door to the cabin flew open and a panicked looking Luke burst out "Whoa! Whoa! What the fuck!?" he cried out, his words were quickly followed by those from Rebecca and Ellie who started to shout at Nick at the same time.

"What the fuck is wrong with you!"

"You idiot! every lurker for five miles probably heard that!"

Their insults seemed to shake Nick out of his daze, he gave Ellie a quick obstinate look before he rounded on the furious Rebecca "you're the one telling me to fucking shoot her!" he snarled, however before Rebecca got a chance to respond and vent her anger Ellie steeped in front of Nick and without warning pushed him as hard as she could so that he staggered back a few steps "if anyone should be shoot here it's you, you fucking asshole" she shouted and moved towards him with the intention of punching him.

"Everyone just calm down for a second!" Alvin said and taking Ellie by the shoulders steered her away from Nick, she glared at Nick who glared right back at her with such intensity that one could think that she had just insulted his saintly mother.

"Clementine are you okay?" Ellie heard Luke ask as he helped the African-American girl to her feet's, "yeah" Clementine answered weakly, Luke turned back to the group and for the first time since Ellie had met him he looked angry "what the hell is wrong with you people? They are just scared kids".

"We're all scared Luke" Rebecca said without a hint of remorse for what had happened "don't act like we are the ones being irrational because we don't buy their bullshit story" she said and waved her hand dismissively at the two girls "irrational!" Ellie exclaimed in outrage, she raised her hand and pointed an accusing finger at Nick "your stupid redneck friend here nearly blew Clementine's hand off!".

Rebecca looked like she was about to retort when the sound of the cabin door opening and closing caught everyone's attention, Ellie looked away from the pregnant woman and instead focused on a black haired Hispanic man with a full mustache and stubbled beard that had just exited the cabin and was walking calmly towards them, he was dressed in a pair of worn dark jeans and a red and white checkered patterned shirt that reminded Ellie a lot of the shirts that Joel usually wore.

"Let me take a look" he said with a calm lightly accented voice, the others parted to make way for him, he stopped in front of Clementine and gestured for her to show him her arm, Clementine hesitated and looked at Luke "It's okay Clem, he's a doctor" he said with a kind voice, her eyes then went to Pete and Ellie, Pete gave her a smile and nodded, still more than a bit angry Ellie gave the smaller girl a stiff nod.

Clementine pulled up the left sleeve of her new jacket and stretched out her bandaged arm to the doctor who took it gingerly and started to unwrap it, when he reached the final layer Clementine's face twisted into a grimace and she whimpered in pain, her dried blood had fused the bandage to the stitches in her arm, Ellie could only imagine how painful it must be for her to have her unhealed flesh pulled at like that.

When the final layer was removed everyone in morbid fascination leaned in to have a better look at the wound, Nick quickly looked away – whether it was because he found the wound disgusting or disturbing to look at Ellie didn't know – and took a few steps away from the group, Alvin made a hissing sound "damn that most have hurt" he murmured loud enough so everyone heard him.

After a quick inspection of the arm Carlos looked up at Ellie "did you do this?" he asked and pointed at the stitches, Ellie crossing her arm's "yes!" she said and gave him a defiant look daring him to criticize her work but to her surprise no criticism came instead he asked in the same calm voice "and you used disinfection on it?" Ellie gave a sharp nod in response.

With his questions answered Carlos focus went back to Clem's arm, after letting him studied the sewed up wound a bit longer Luke asked in a worried tone the thing that the entire cabin group was wondering "is it a dog bite like they say?" Carlos didn't answer him at ones, instead he gently poked and twisted Clementine's bitten forearm a few times making her wince in pain then he said "hmm it's hard to tell…whatever it was it got her good".

Nick – who had been standing on the side biting his nails – pushed his way back into the center of the group "this isn't how we do things man, when you're bit you get put down end of story, I'm not going through this again" he said his face a mask of irritation.

"No one is suggesting that Nick" Luke said his hands raised in a placating gesture "but we don't know if it really is a lurker bite or not".

"She was bitten by a fucking dog, she's not going to turn" Ellie shouted in frustration, it felt like they were running around in circles and not getting anywhere, despite the cloud of frustration that was swirling in her mind Nick's words had made Ellie think, they had been through a situation like this before but with a real bite victim that time and by the sound of it they had – like many others before them – not taken enough precautions when they tried to help him or her and it had literary come back to bite them, from the look of things the person in question had been someone close to Nick, " _no wonder he's so jumpy_ ".

"You don't know what you're talking about, I've seen this shit before, when your bit by a lurker your as good as dead" he pointed at Clementine's arm "when that bite kills her she's going to turn and then she's going to try and eat us, she has to be put down now before that happens!" he shouted.

"Wow, you've seen a few people get bitten and turned? that most make you a fucking expert on situations like this right?" Ellie said her voice dripping with angry sarcasm "you think you're the only one that have seen bite victims before? I was stuck in Boston for more than a month after those things took over, I saw hundreds of people get bitten and turned by those things" she snared heatedly, her eyes felt slightly moist but she ignored them "during the past two years I've have had to mercy kill more than twenty people, some of them were my friends" she shouted, her voice cracking as the face of an African-American girl with brown eyes and brown black hair set up in a ponytail flashed through her mind and tears threatened to spill down her cheeks "so don't come to me and say I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about".

Pete grabbed them both by the shoulders and pushed them apart "that's enough!" he said in a low voice yet they all heard him and there was no mistaking the weariness in it, his gaze wandered to Nick "we're not putting anyone down, at least not until Carlos has had his say" Nick gave him a mutinous look but didn't say anything.

Ellie felt a great gratitude towards Pete for stepping in, she didn't think she could have continued the argument with Nick, at least not without getting physical and that would not have ended well, from the corners of her eyes Ellie saw Alvin give her a sympathetic look, she quickly wiped the tears from her eyes with her sleeve, she hated crying – especially in front of other people – it made her feel weak, she felt a hand on her shoulder and looked up into Luke's concerned face "you okay" he asked, Ellie nodded "yeah" she sniffed and whipped her eyes again "just…give me a minute".

"Pete the girl is bitten, she needs to be put out of her misery" Rebecca said – with a tone that Ellie thought was not quite as harsh as it had been before – and gestured to Clementine "you can't seriously believe this wishful thinking their spewing".

"I have a pretty darn good bullshit detector Rebecca, that why none of you have ever beaten me in poker and it tells me that they are telling the truth" the scowl that Rebecca made told everyone what she thought of Pete inbuilt lie detector.

"Who are they?" standing on the threshold of the now half opened cabin door was a Hispanic girl with shoulder length black hair and red rimmed glasses, she didn't look to be any older then Ellie herself, from her looks alone Ellie guest that she must be related to Carlos somehow " _his daughter maybe?_ "

"Sarah?" Carlos rose from his crouch and half turning looked at the girl his face suddenly very stern "what did I say? Stay inside" with a look of dejection Sarah did as Carlos said and closed the door behind her, " _definitely his daughter_ " Carlos turned back to Clementine and put his hand on her forehead.

"I don't want to be any trouble" Clementine said speaking up for the first time since Nick almost shoot her, as she continued to speak Carlos crouched down again so that their eyes were leveled with one another "I just want to know if my arm will be okay and then we'll leave, you'll never see us again, I promise".

Carlos eyes narrowed slightly "and where exactly would you go?" he asked with a suspicious edge to his voice, "far away from here" Ellie steeped in and said "we can take care of our self's"

"Clearly" Rebecca said sarcastically, Ellie responded by giving her the finger.

"Carlos we've been through this shit before, we all agreed we don't wait for shit like this, end of story" Nick said but Carlos didn't answer him, he just stared at Clementine's wound in contemplation, then he sighed, stood up and rejoined the rest of the group.

"So what do you think" Alvin asked, his question was quickly followed by one from Nick "was it a lurker" Carlos crossed his arms and took a deep breath "a bite like that…it could be from a dog it's hard to tell, she does have a small fever" before anyone could interrupt him at this damning bit of news he continued "but it's not high enough to tell if it's from a lurker bite or just a common cold there is only one way to find out" he finished and his face turned grim.

"How?"

"We wait"

"What!" Rebecca exclaimed in surprise, she wasn't the only one who had been taken aback by Carlos words, Alvin was staring at him wide eyed in shock and Luke looked apprehensive, Ellie on the other hand was using all the self-control she had not to smirk.

"By tomorrow morning If her fever has gone through the roof we'll know if she's going to turn" he looked back over his shoulder at Clementine "in the meantime we can lock her in the shed" the joy that Ellie had just felt went out of her as fast as the air from a popped balloon, both hers and Clementine's eyes widened "you can't be serious!" Ellie exclaimed in disbelief but the look Carlos gave her told her that he was dead serious "and what would you have us do then? Let her stay in the house?" Carlos asked but before she could answer he continued "you have so far not shown us any proof that she was not bitten by a lurker".

"We both said th-".

"That's not good enough" Carlos cut her off his voice now hard as stone "I'm not going to risk the life of my daughter or any other member of my group on the word of two strangers, especially when there is a safer way to find out the truth" Ellie clenched her hands into fists and grinded her teeth in frustration, she wanted to shout and protest even hit someone, it took all her willpower to do none of those things.

She understood Carlos reasoning, she really did, back in Boston a day or two before order had completely collapsed the survivors of the orphanage experienced a situation similar to the one Carlos was in now.

A wounded man had come pounding at the orphanage gates begging for help, the man – Ellie never found out his name – knew the matron of the orphanage Mrs Hale – the only grownup that hadn't abandoned them to die – who let him in and tended to his wounds, the next morning the kids were awakened by a horrible scream, when they went down to see what had happened they found Mrs Hale laying on the floor with the man crouching over her blood covered body and ravenously tearing into her throat, it took five of them working together to kill it – ones they had overcome their shock and horror – but by then it had already killed little Jeremy – who had been too scared to runaway – and bitten Rachelle and Michael.

There would probably had been more deaths or bites that day if not the new girl Riley Abel had had the foresight to stab the heads of Jeremy and Mrs Hale, although at the time the other kids – Ellie included – thought that she had lost it.

Since Mrs Hale had kept them inside the orphanage ever since the first riot – and stopped them from watching the news since she didn't want to scare them – the kids had no idea how the stalker virus spread so they did the only humane thing they could think of, they treated Rachelle's and Michael's wounds as best they could and then – on Riley's urgent insistence – quarantined them in separate rooms in case they too died and turned, that turned out to be a wise move since they inevitably did.

It was that incident that taught Ellie and the other kids that a bite was certain death, they never let another bite victim into the orphanage again no matter how much they pleaded or screamed for help, not even if it was one of their own, they did however mercy kill them if they asked them to with a silencer gun that one of them had found on a food run but unfortunately they didn't always have bullets to it, in those cases the victims were left to find a way to kill themselves, Ellie could still remember how one of them – Jessica – had pleaded with them to let her in after she had been bitten on a food run, they had told her to go away and commit suicide but she didn't listen she just stood there screaming and screaming to be let in for almost ten minutes before a group of stalkers reached her and tore her apart, she didn't even try to run away from them, she only screamed.

If Ellie was in Carlos situation she would have done the same thing that he was trying to do now but that didn't mean she liked it, understandably Clementine didn't like it ether, her eyes were moving rapidly back and forth between Ellie and the members of the cabin group as they argued and when Ellie stopped talking after Carlos pointed out the danger of letting her in the house she looked even more uncertain and fearful.

Taking Ellie's silence for reluctant acceptance Carlos said "Luke, Nike take her to the shed" Clementine instantly took a steep back "b-but w-what about my arm?" she asked fearfully "it still need fixing right?"

Everyone stared at Carlos who turned his gaze on Clementine his face soften just slightly and he said in a voice more friendly then Ellie so far had heard come from the man "your friend did a good job at stitching and cleaning your wound, there is very little more I can do to make it better and if it is a dog bite like you say it won't kill you" although his words seemed to calm Clementine she still looked a bit uneasy, Carlos addressed Ellie "since you are so certain that it is a dog bite, I recommend that if you have more bandages you use them, I won't waist any of ours on a potential lurker bite".

Ellie gave him a short stiff nod to show she understood but said nothing, oh she had more bandages alright, enough to mummify half of Clementine if she wanted to but she wasn't going to tell any of them that, if they knew just how much medical supplies she had in her backpack they would most likely try to demand some of it as payment " _or all of it_ " she thought darkly, she needed to be careful and make sure that they didn't see it.

"Come on" Luke said not unkindly to Clementine and gestured for her to follow him, with her head lowered in resignation she walked after him.

Ellie's eyes followed the direction of their walk until they spied the shed that was standing at the edge of the clearing, it wasn't very remarkable, just four wood colored walls, a pair of white double doors and a roof, it didn't look much bigger than her old room at the orphanage.

"Finger off the trigger son" Pete said sternly holding out the rifle to his nephew who irately snatched it from him "I ain't your son" he growled and hurriedly marched off after Luke and Clementine, Ellie glared at his retreating back "asshole" she muttered, Pete sighed and shook his head "he has his mother's temper" he said as if it would excuse Nick's rudeness, Ellie didn't know what to say to that so she just shrugged, picked up her jacket and backpack and headed of after him.

"And where do you think you're going?" Carlos voice cut through the air like a knife, Ellie half turned and scowled at him, she was really starting to get tired of him and his "I know best, do what I say" attitude "with her of course" she said in a deadpan voice and jerked her head in the direction of Clementine, the disapproving look on Carlos's face told her exactly what he thought about that idea "no you're not" he said with the same sternness he had used when he spoke to his daughter "you'll be staying in the house with us".

" _Trying to separate us huh_ " Ellie scowl deepened and her hands clenched into fists, if he thought he could order her around and that she would meekly obey him like Sarah did he had another thing coming "like hell I will, I don't have to do anything you say" she responded defiantly "you not the boss of me" they glowered at each other, neither one of them backing down "maybe not" he said slowly "but have you considered the fact that if you stay in that shed and she should die and turn during the night she'll kill you".

Ellie snorted, if he thought he could scare her into obeying him he was dead wrong "she won't turn, I was there, I know she wasn't bitten by a damn stalker so I damn well know she's not infected!" Ellie almost shouted the last part.

Carlos stared at her with growing frustration and Ellie was sure that he wasn't used to being talked back to like this by a kid, she suspected – from the little she had seen of her – that Carlos daughter was too timid to stand up against her father like this, Carlos opened his mouth no doubt to argue more but before he could utter a sound Rebecca spoke "give it up Carlos, if the girl wants to be eaten by her friend, I say we let her, so long as I don't have to clean up afterwards" Ellie glared at Rebecca and was sorely tempted to flip her off again but restrained herself when Alvin said "Becca that's enough!" although he sounded more disappointed with his wife then angry, laying his arm around her shoulder he said "come on" and steered her towards the cabin.

Carlos sighed and rubbed his eyes, perhaps it was because he was tiered or maybe because he had realized that anymore arguing with Ellie would be pointless that he said "if you want to stay with your friend, fine, go" and without another word he headed back towards the cabin, Ellie in turn spun on her heel and headed for the shed.

When she was only a few meters from it Luke started to shut the doors whiles Nick kept a guarded eye on Clementine who was standing just inside cradling her wounded arm looking dejectedly out at them "hold the doors" Ellie called out to them, the two young men looked at her as she walked past into the shed and stopped before Clementine.

"the hell do you-"

"Nick, come on man, give them a moment"

"How are you doing?" Ellie asked the younger girl "I'm okay, just a bit cold" Clementine answered and emphasized the point she rubbed her arms with her hands, "yeah, it is pretty chilly out here" Ellie noted and her anger at Carlos for locking her new friend in the shed rose anew, "I bet it's a lot warmer in the house" Clementine said longingly "maybe" Ellie said "but it also has a couple of jackasses in it" and to her satisfaction Clementine smiled.

Ellie was then reminded that she and Clementine was not alone when from behind her Nick mutter what sounded like a series of curses, she turned to the two men and cleared her throat "you can close the doors and go now" Nick and Luke looked at her first in confusion then with dawning realization "you're going to stay in there with her?!" Nick burst out in disbelief "are you fucking serious?"

"Yeah I am" Ellie said, steeping forward with a look of apprehension on his face Luke said "Ellie I don't think that's a good idea, if something were to happen during the night" he cast a quick glance at Clementine "we probably won't be able to help you in time"

"Oh for fucks sake" Ellie groaned in annoyance, with all the running, arguing and shouting she had done today her patience were at its last straw "look" she said exasperatedly "Carlos and I just had an argument about it and he couldn't make me change my mind and you won't either so just drop it alright!" when neither of the two men moved she snapped "just go, I'll be fine".

"Ellie-"

"Just fucking go!" she shouted.

If Luke took offense to her rudeness he didn't show it, Nick on the other hand looked furious, he took a step towards her "the hell is you problem, he's trying to help you, you ungrateful little shit!" he snarled, Luke put a hand on Nick's shoulder "it's okay Nick, it's been a long day…for all of us, let's just go back to the house" Luke turned on his heel and walked out of the shed, with one last nasty look at Ellie Nick followed his friend outside, "I'll come out with some food for you guys later okay" Luke said before he shut the doors.

"This is stupid" Ellie heard Nick mutter under his breath ones the latch had been slide into place and the sound of the two men's footsteps could be heard heading in the direction of the cabin.

"why are we even doing this?" Nick muffled voice ask through the wooden doors "It's so fucking dumb".

"Because it's safer this way and I'd rather be sure" Luke answered.

"Yeah but safer for who?" Ellie wondered how Luke would respond to that question but by then he and Nick were too far away for her to hear his reply.

With the two men gone Ellie her flash light and turned it one so that they could studied their new surroundings, the shed was sparsely furnished with only a shelf on the left side wall and an empty workbench on the right, a barrel with a few planks sticking out of it stood in the far left corner with a garden rake leaning against it, on the far wall hung a life ring, a fishing rode and a very sharp looking boat anchor and finally standing against the far right corner was a toolbox.

Judging by the many potential weapons the cabin group had left them they had never intended for the shed to be a prison cell, Ellie turned her attention to the sheds other occupant who had also been scanning the interior of the shed "they left a lot of stuff in here" Clementine said, her eyes roaming over the things on the far wall from right to left before they locked onto the shelf "what's that?" Clementine asked and pointed, Ellie looked up at it, she hadn't noticed it before but a handle of some kind of tool was stick out over its edge, standing on her tiptoes she reached up and grabbed it.

It turned out to be a hammer, she hefted the tool in her hand and showed it to Clementine who looked at it with interest "do you thing Luke or the others need it?" she asked, Ellie shrugged "don't know, maybe, why do you ask?" Clementine pulled out her folding knife and showed it to Ellie "I need another weapon, I only have this knife and it doesn't really have any reach" Ellie nodded in understanding, by her estimation the blade would not be longer then Clementine's index finger, not the kind of knife you'd want to have when fighting stalkers "we can ask Luke when he comes back out" she said and put the hammer back on the shelf "but before he do let's bandage up your arm and rest".

She sat down on the hard floor " _this floor is going to be a bitch to sleep on_ " she thought as she pulled out her medical bag " _I hope Luke brings something soft for us to lay on or else we're both going to have sore backs in the morning_ ".

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I've already started writing chapter 3 but like i said I'm a slow writer so it probably wont be finished any time soon.

Please review and tell me what you think?


	3. Chapter 3

**Hello readers. Wow, it have almost been two years since I last updated this story and most of you - with good reason - thought that I have given up. I'm hear to tell you now that I have not given up. Most of you are probably wondering what the hell I have been doing this whole time. The simple answer to that question is work. I've had to take on extra responsibilities as well as an extra shift at work. Because of this I'm often too exhausted when I come home to do any writing, my extra shift has also caused me sleep difficulty's. I fear that this has effected the quality of my writing.**

 **I managed to write most of this chapter during the summer when I was finally free of work. Unlike last year, a good part of this summer was cold so I could stay inside to work on the story without dying of a heat stroke.**

 **BEFORE YOU START READING THIS CHAPTER, KNOW THIS. It should have been longer, but I figure you guys has waited more then long enough for this. I am considering shortening future chapters so that I can get them out fast, but this will most likely mean a lot of cliff hangers and I hate cliff hangers. Anyways, I hope you enjoy this chapter.**

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Ellie's heart hammered in her chest as she ran down the dark passage. From behind her came the sound of hundreds of shuffling feets mixed together with the rasping growls of their dead owners. The noise sent a fresh shiver of fear and impending doom through her. She resisted the terrible urge she felt to look back, she knew what she would see if she did. A wall of rotting human body's pushing and trampling each other in order to get to her, their arms outstretched to grab a hold of her and their mouths open in anticipation to tear the living flesh from her bones and devour it.

"Through here!" Ellie heard a familiar voice shout so as to be heard over the noise of their pursuers. Ellie looked to her right and her heart skipped a beat. Her best friend Riley was running beside her, droplets of sweat running down her face. Her black brown hair was setup in its usual boll at the back of her head. She wore her usual dirty white t-shirt, with a blue shirt over it and a pair of jeans that had several small holes in them around the knees. She turned down a passage to the right and Ellie followed her. To Ellie's relief, she saw daylight at the passage end.

They ran out into an enormous two story circular hall with a glass dome. On the opposite side of the hall Ellie saw the exit, but between them and it was at least forty stalkers. Ellie and Riley stopped in the center of the hall and looked around for another way out or a place to hide. There were none. The dead were all around them, everywhere Ellie looked. Down every passage, through every shop window and door. There were well over a hundred of the things and they were all now converging on them like a tidal wave of putrefied flesh, their arms outstretched, their dead white eyes staring unblinkingly at the two girls who had unwisely run in to their midst. Ellie knew that unless she or Riley did something quickly they would be torn to bloody pieces.

She looked around franticly for something, anything that could help them escape. She felt a cold stiff hand grab hold of her shoulder. Reflexively, Ellie pulled out her knife and stab the dead woman that had grabbed her right in the side of the head as it leaned forward to sink its yellow brown teeth into her. The stalker twitched ones and collapsed onto the floor. Ellie raised her knife in anticipation of the next attack. "Ellie this way." Riley's voice called from behind her. Ellie spun on her heel and saw Riley sprinting to one side of the room where the dead wasn't as numerus. Ellie was about to shout out to her and ask where she was going. It was then that she saw salvation.

Right ahead of them was a metal scaffolding that reached up to the second floor. Why she hadn't noticed it earlier when she entered the room she didn't know and at that moment didn't really care. She ran towards it, sidestepping several stalkers that reached out to grab her and stabbed another one in the eye and shoved it to the ground when it blocked her path. She jumped up onto the side of the scaffolding and started climbing as fast as she could to the top.

She hadn't even made it half way up when the scaffolding started to shake violently, and Ellie's feet slipped. "Fuck." she cried out in surprise and fear. For a second, her hands were the only thing that stopped her from falling to a gruesome death. Looking down she saw that the stalkers were pressing themselves against the scaffolding from all directions, making it shake and sway. "Ellie! Move!" Riley shouted down from above her, she needn't have bothered. Ellie was already climbing so fast that despite Riley's head start they both reached the top at about the same time.

The constant pushing from the Stalkers below made standing on top of the scaffolding extremely difficult. Stretching out her hand and pressing it to the wall for support, Ellie managed with effort to stand upright. Mimicking her, Riley got to her feet as well but fell back on to all four the next second when a powerful push from below shook the scaffolding. The shaking almost made Ellie lose her footing as well. "Riley!" she cried out. "I'm fine, go!" Riley waved her arm to emphasis her words. Ellie hesitated for a second but when Riley repeated her order for her to go, Ellie jumped up and grabbed hold around the bottom of the metal railing to the second floor and with effort, she pulled herself up. As she climbed up and over it, Ellie felt the railing sway slightly from her weight.

With her feets on firm ground one's more, Ellie turned around to see how her friend was doing. To her relief, Riley had already gotten back on her feets. The next second she jumped and like Ellie before her, grabbed hold of the railing. "Take my hand." Ellie said and reached down to help pull Riley up. Riley looked up at her and with an expression of great strain on her face, she let go of the railing with her right hand and gripped Ellie's wrist.

Ellie felt the muscles in her arm strain painfully as she helped pull her friend up. She didn't let go until Riley had a good foot hold and a solid grip on the hand rail. Riley was breathing hard from all the running and climbing she had done. Drops of sweat was rolling down her forehead, Ellie followed one with her eyes as it made its way down the side of her face. Riley opened her mouth to say something when her head suddenly snapped to the side, "ELLIE, STALKER!". Ellie barely had time to turn in the direction Riley was looking, when two dead hands grabbed hold of her with such force that she was knocked off her feet.

The content of her backpack jabbed painfully into Ellie's back when she hit the ground. Instinctively, she pushed her hands out in front of her to hold back her attacker. It saved her life. When the stalker came down on top of her, she managed to hold the thing's mouth at a distance. The stalker's dry dead fingers locked around Ellie's shoulders painfully. If her jacket hadn't been in the way, it's nails would have pierced her skin and drawn blood. The stalker growled and snapped its maw at her, spraying Ellie's face with blood and some other kind of foul smelling liquid.

Despite her initial success at not being bitten, Ellie saw that she was living on borrowed time. The stalker was a full-grown man and recently turned to boot, which meant he was much stronger than her. Ellie's arms were slowly giving way under the combined weight and strength of the living corpse. The muscles in her arms hurt as they strained in the effort to hold the thing back. The stalker's snapping jaws was getting closer and closer every second. The horrible stench of its breath nearly made Ellie vomit. Seeing certain death coming towards her, Ellie panicked. She screamed, bucked, kicked and dug her fingers into the soft rotten flesh, anything to try and get the thing away from her.

"Hold it still." Riley shouted at the top of her voice from beside her. But Ellie couldn't hold still, she was too afraid. She continued to kick, scream and claw at the stalker as if she was mad. In her panic not to get bitten, Ellie barely registered that Riley pressed the muzzle of a gun against the side of the stalkers head before her friend pulled the trigger. Blood, brain and bone matter sprayed out the side of the stalkers head and painted the floor and part of the wall reddish black. Ellie felt several cold droplets splatter on to her face.

Like a marionette that has had its strings cut, the stalker stopped moving. With her life no longer in immediate danger and the muscles in her arms burning from the strain of holding the stalker back, Ellie let the now permanently dead man collapse on top of her. She let out a choking cough as the weight of it drove the breath from her lungs.

"Did it get you?" Riley asked, her voice filled with fear and concern.

"No." Ellie managed to cough out, "I'm not hurt.". She took a deep ragged breath and tried to lift the thing off her, but her arms were still tired from the fight and the stalkers fingers had locked themselves around her shoulders and refused to let go. She just barely managed to lift the corpse a few inches to the side when her arms gave out and the thing fell back on top of her.

Ellie was about to ask Riley to give her a hand, but the words caught in her throat. A second stalker was shambling towards Riley. It was moving with the speed the dead only ever used when they smelled fresh meat. "RILEY, ON YOUR LEFT!" Ellie cried out but it was too late. By the time Riley had turned to face the new threat, the stalker was upon her.

From instinct honed over the past few weeks, Riley raised her arms in front of her to stop the dead thing from biting her. Like the one that had attacked Ellie, this one was recently turned. With its superior strength, it forced Riley backwards and to the side until her back hit the railing hard. Riley let out a grunt of pain and Ellie saw to her horror the gun fall from her hand and hit the floor with a clatter. "Ellie! Help!" Riley cried out in terror. She had hardly even uttered the words when the railing gave way with a loud grinding noise and the two combatants fell over the edge.

"RILEY."

Ellie woke up with a start, she was breathing rapidly as if she had just had a long run. Her body was covered in cold sweat and she had tears in her eyes. It took her a few second before she realized what had happened. A dream. It had only been a dream. No, not a dream. A memory, a recurring nightmare. Ellie felt her heart constrict painfully in her chest and fresh tears came to her eyes. "Riley. God fucking damnit." She sobbed.

Out of all the deaths that Ellie had witness over the past two years, none had hit her as hard as Riley's had. She never told anyone what had happened, not even the other kids at the orphanage, even though they had all asked. All she ever told them was that Riley was not coming back. They had all understood what she had meant with those words, even the young ones. Riley was dead and was not going to rise again. Ellie had spent several days afterwards shut in her room, just lying on her bed crying and staring at the ceiling.

It wasn't her bedroom ceiling her teary eyes was looking up at now though. Hers had been flat, white and crisscrossed with cracks that was as familiar to her as the back of her hand. This one was angled and wooden and unfamiliar. It took Ellie several seconds before she remembered where she was and how she had got there. She wiped her eyes on her sleeve.

Ellie's mood turned from sorrow to anger at the memories of yesterday. Not even the small glimmer of early morning light that shone in through a crack in the wall – heralding the news that the rain from last night had past – could lighten her mood. Rebecca's hostile attitude towards them and Nick's attempt to kill Clementine made the blood boil in her veins. Carlos wasn't much better. Ellie felt rankled by his attitude towards her. How he thought he could just order her around as if he was a guard from the QZ military school. Muttering a string of curses that would have made a sailor proud, Ellie rolled over onto her side and closed her eyes. Maybe she would be able to get a little more sleep, god knew she would need to be rested when the cabin group came out to check on them.

As she lay there waiting for sleep, she listened to the sound of tree branches swaying in the wind outside as well as the sound of Clementine's breathing. Clementine's breathing was the deep and slow of someone in blissful sleep and not the shallow rasping sound of an infected person fighting for air. She had survived the night, just as Ellie knew she would. " _In your face, Rebecca._ " Ellie smiled at the thought of seeing the pregnant women's reaction when she saw that Clem was still alive and in good health.

Ellie lay there for what felt like hours. But when sleep wouldn't come, Ellie gave up and open her eyes. Even though it was still dark inside the shed, she could see Clementine's sleeping face lying in front of her. She had removed her hat and hairbands before they went to sleep last night and as a result, her hair was now a tangled mess. It reminded Ellie a bit of Riley's bed hair – although Riley's hair had been longer – that time during a food run when they had been unable to return to the orphanage before nightfall – thanks to a small group of hunters trying to kill them – and they'd had to sleep in an abandoned apartment.

Ellie stretched out her hand and gently moved some of the hair away from Clem's forehead. Clementine didn't stir from the touch and slept on peacefully. Confident that she wouldn't wake the younger girl, Ellie put her hand against her forehead. She was still warm with a fever, but it had definitely gone down during the night. " _Good._ " Ellie thought," _that should help convince them that we were telling the truth._ " or at least she hoped it would. From the way Nick and Rebecca had acted yesterday, Ellie wasn't sure if they'd believe them even if the truth jumped up and kicked them in the teeth. They didn't matter much though, Carlos did. He was the trained doctor after all and would be able to tell now with certainty that she wasn't infected. Ones he had given her the all clear, then they would leave this place and hopefully never see it or its occupants ever again.

Ellie's stomach chose that moment to contract painfully and emit a low rumbling noise. " _Damn I'm hungry._ " She hoped that Luke, Alvin or Pete – who had proven themselves to be the most sympathetic members of the cabin group – would give them some breakfast before they left. Ellie wouldn't mind having some of the leftovers from yesterday. The thought of last night's dinner made her stomach make another rumble and her mouth water.

Luke had been true to his word, he and Carlos had brought out a plate of boiled rice and fried deer meat for each of them. Whiles Ellie generally didn't like rice that much – the damn things didn't taste anything, she had long since learned not to look a gift horse in the mouth, especially when she was hungry. When the food had been given to them, she had wolfed it down with such speed that Luke expressed his worry that she would choke. Clementine had also eaten her food quickly.

During their meal, Luke and Carlos had asked them questions that ranged from where they were from to what had happened to their families and how they had survived the outbreak and so on. Carlos had directed most of the questions at Clementine first, maybe he thought she would be easier to talk to than Ellie. Clementine told them of how her parents had gone on vacation to Savannah and left her with a babysitter, Sandra, and never came back. Of how Sandra had been infected when the outbreak had started and how Clementine had been forced to hide in her treehouse for days until a man named Lee had found her. She went on to tell of how they had found a group and tried to survive. As she told her tale, Ellie noticed that Clementine glossed over the gruesome stuff that had happened on the St Johns farm. Perhaps the memories were too painful to relive again so soon or maybe she did it so that Ellie wouldn't lose her appetite.

When she got to the part about how she had been fooled into leaving their camp in Savannah by a crazy man that had been stalking the group and who claimed he had her parents, her voice had started to crack. When she told them how Lee had saved her and killed the crazy man and later collapsed as they tried to flee the city, she broke into tears. "He got bitten when he went looking for me." she sniffed, tears rolled down her cheeks. "He had tried to cut off his arm to stop the infection, but it didn't work. He wasn't going to make it. He…he asked me to shoot him…so he wouldn't come back…and I did.". She didn't say another word after that.

Luke had looked almost a little tearful himself and had offered her his condolences. Although Carlos kept his emotions more under control than Luke, Ellie could see that Clementine's words had moved him as well. Since Clementine didn't want to speak anymore, Ellie had taken over. She gave them a quick version of the outbreak in Boston and the chaos that followed. Of how general Spears and his army had marched in and taken over and built the quarantine zone.

As she spoke about the zone and how things worked inside it, she noticed a deepening frown on Luke's face. "And no one tried to stand up to him?" He had asked after she had told them about the mandatory military school and the checkpoints that separated the areas. "He has a well-trained and heavily armed army." Ellie had pointed out to him. "But yeah. There were people who stood up to him. Those who didn't disappear after they had voiced their opinion formed a group called the Fireflies and planned a coup against him."

"I take it, it didn't work?" Carlos had asked.

Ellie had nodded, "Spears had spies everywhere, so he found out about it. Most of the Fireflies were killed. The rest fled the zone. I didn't have any more strikes with the school authorities and the Firefly leader was an old friend of my mom, so I went with them.". Ellie then went on to explain that the Fireflies had foreseen that there was a possibility that their coup would fail. A few months before the Firefly massacre, Marlene had sent out a group south to setup a camp outside New York that they could flee to in case they had to leave the QZ.

Plan B did not however work out as Marlene had planned. The camp had been overrun with stalkers long before Ellie and the other got there. Most of the supplies and equipment had either been destroyed in the attack or looted by other survivors who came later. With their backup plan in ruins, the Fireflies decided to head further south to avoid the worst of the coming winter. Along the way the group scavenged equipment, food and a few cars. They also picked up a few other survivors, one of which was a man named Joel, who claimed that his brother was a member of a large camp of survivors up in Jackson, Wyoming.

"How did he know that if he were at the east coast when the outbreak happened?" Carlos had asked. "He claimed that his brother had managed to send him a message about the camp before the phones went dead." Ellie had answered with a shrug, "why he didn't go there before now. I don't know.". Carlos had made a "hmm" sound but otherwise said nothing. From the expression on his face, Ellie had guessed that Carlos did not believe Joel's claim. Most of the Fireflies hadn't been convinced by his words either. Marlene on the other hand, had thought it worth a try. Despite a long and very heated debate that lead to a few people leaving, the Fireflies headed out west. Not many days after that, they had been ambushed in the forest.

Carlos had grilled her extensively about the ambush. How many were the attackers? What did they look like? Did they say anything? Did you hear their names? What kind of weapons did they use? Were they well equipped? And on and on it went until Ellie lost her temper with him and had shouted that she had told him everything she could remember and that she was tired of being interrogated. Carlos had looked ready to insist on more questioning but Luke told him that they had asked enough of them.

With that said and their stomachs full of food, Luke and Carlos had wished them goodnight and left. Tired from the day's event, Ellie and Clementine had gone to sleep on the bedrolls that Luke had brought out for them to sleep on. The bedrolls were thin, old and moth eaten and had done little to soften the hard ground. The blankets they were given weren't much better. They smelled musty and had more than a few holes in them. Despite the bad shape of their bed wear, neither Clementine nor Ellie had complained. They were both just happy that they had been given something to help keep them warm during the night. And the night had been very cold.

With a yawn, Ellie slowly sat up, her back cracking painfully as she did so. " _I fucking called it._ " she thought to herself, " _the floors a bitch._ ". She stretched her arms and rolled her neck. They cracked almost as much as her back. The motion of stretching her body made her feel how full her bladder was, " _I need to take a piss_ ". Standing up, Ellie turned towards where she knew the workbench was located and stretched out her left hand to feel along its surface for one of the final two things that Luke had left them. Her fingers brushed against something round and soft. She grabbed it and with the workbench as her guide she walked over to the corner by the door. It wasn't hard to find the bucket that Luke had left for them in case they felt "natures call" during the night. He also brought them – and Ellie had almost hugged him for it – a roll of toilet paper.

The smell of piss and shit assaulted her nostrils long before she even reached the corner and made her nose wrinkle in disgust. The smell would probably be even worse if it wasn't for the fresh cool morning air that blew in from a small section of the wall where the wood had rotted away to form a jagged hole. The hole had been covered over on the outside with a piece of plywood but that to had also started to rot away.

Ellie had almost smiled when she had seen the makeshift repaired hole. If they had needed to escape during the night, it would have been child's play for her to reopen the hole with just one or two kicks. The wooden plank that had been nailed up diagonally across the repair job on the inside however would cause a small hindrance. It wouldn't have been any problem to them if Carlos hadn't removed the hammer from the shed when Clementine had asked if she could have it.

Ellie did her business with the bucket and when she was done, she returned the toilet paper to the work bench. She was about to go back to bed when someone knocked on the door three times. Clementine let out a loud groan. Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, she slowly sat up. "Girls?" Luke's hesitant voice came from the other side of the door, "are you…uh…awake?". Ellie was about to say "no, we're not. Come back later." but before she could utter the words, Clementine said with a hoarse voice "yes, we're both awake…and alive." she probably added the last part to put Luke and whoever else was out there at ease. Ellie went over to the workbench and sat down on it.

After unlatching it, Luke opened the doors. The light that shone in was so bright that it hurt Ellie's eyes and she raised her hand to shield them. Between her fingers, she saw three shadows standing in the doorway. After a few seconds, her eyes had adjusted enough for her to see that it was Luke, Carlos and – to her annoyance – Nick.

"Morning." Luke greeted as he and the others entered the shed. Carlos also bid them good morning with a nod. Nick on the other hand didn't say anything, he just stared at Clementine warily as if expecting her to attack at any second. "Morning." Ellie and Clementine greeted back to the three. Well, Clem did anyway. Ellie only greeted Luke and Carlos and gave Nick the finger. Ellie wasn't at all surprised by the disapproving shake of the head she got from Carlos. She was however surprised by Nick's response. He ignored her completely and kept his gaze fixed on Clementine, maybe he didn't even see that he was being flicked off.

"How are you feeling Clementine?" Carlos asked as he approached her. "I feel better then yesterday. My arm still hurts a bit." Clementine answered. Carlos nodded, he crouched down in front of her and put his hand to her forehead. He held it there for a few seconds, then he removed it and gestured for her to show him her arm. He unwrapped the bandage and studied the wound. "Does this hurt." he asked and gently pressed his fingers on her arm. Clementine winced and her mouth twisted into a grimace, "Yes." she said. Carlos nodded and let go of her arm.

"Well! is she going to turn or not?" Nick asked with nervous impatiens, his trigger finger tapping the side of his rifle. "She's not going to turn. Her fever has gone down and her wound seems to be healing well." Carlos answered without turning to look at Nick. He put his hand on Clementine's shoulder and gave her a reassuring smile. "Your arm will hurt for some time I'm afraid but it's going to be fine." he said. Luke let out a relieved chuckle and smiled, "seems we owe you girls an apology. I'm sorry for doubting you." He said and lightly nudged Nick with his elbow. If the gesture was a sign for Nick to apologize, he ignored it.

"You're sure she's not going to turn?" he asked.

"Yes, I'm sure." Carlos answered firmly.

As Carlos proceeded to clean and wrap Clem's wrist with fresh bandages he had brought with him, Ellie watched Nick wearily. From his actions yesterday, Nick had proven himself to be aggressive and jumpy when he felt threatened or uncertain. Ellie would not put it past him to try something even if Carlos had given Clementine the all clear. She slowly moved her hand so that she could easily reach the gun in the back of her pants.

Nick's stared at Carlos, then at Clementine, then to the rifle in his hands, then back to Clementine. The way his eyes kept moving back and forth between the people in the shed reminded Ellie of a lost child who did not know what to do. To her surprise, Nick's grip on the rifle slackened and he let it drop and dangle at his side. He slowly turned on his heel and almost in a daze, walked back towards the cabin without saying a word, not caring in the slightest that the barrel of his rifle was scraping against the ground as he walked away.

"I'll go talk to him." Luke said and hurried out after his friend, leaving Carlos alone with the two girls. Ellie relaxed and put her hand back on the table. "He doesn't take disappointment well, does he?!" she said to no one in particular. "No, he doesn't." Carlos agreed, "but in this case, I think that it is more guilt then disappointment.".

"Guilt?" Ellie repeated.

"He nearly shot Clementine yesterday because he thought she was infected. Now he knows she wasn't." Carlos eyes meet Ellie's. "How would you feel if you found out you almost killed a defenseless child because you let your fears get the better of you?" he asked. Ellie didn't need time to think about it, she knew how she would feel. "I'd feel like a piece of shit." She answered. Carlos nodded and went on binding up Clem's arm. "Nick acts tough like he doesn't care, but he is more sensitive than he wants people to know. Yesterday he let his fears and temper get the better of him and he almost killed a child because of it. That thought will haunt him for some time I think."

Ellie turned her head and looked out though the open doors. Nick was standing not too far from the stairs to the house with his back to the shed. Luke was standing beside him with his hand on Nick's slumped shoulder. He was saying something to him, but Nick didn't seem to be responding at all, he just hung his head like a defeated man. Ellie had thought yesterday that she had all the members of the Cabin group pegged, but the fact that Nick seemed to be remorseful of his action, showed that he wasn't the complete asshole Ellie had thought he was. Maybe she should reevaluate her opinion of him.

"There. All done." Carlos said, drawing Ellie's attention away from Nick. He and Clementine stood up from the floor. Clementine flexed her now securely wrapped forearm experimentally. "How's it feeling Clem?" Ellie asked. "It still hurts, but it feels better." she said and put her hand in her pocket and pulled out her hairbands. She expertly tied the first pigtail and moved on to the second. "Have you ever thought of setting up your hair in a ponytail instead? It's quicker and much simpler." Ellie asked. "I like my hair like this." Clementine answered and put on her dirty cap, "I'm done. Shall we go?". Ellie nodded and was about to get her stuff when Carlos cleared his throat. "Alvin is making breakfast for all of us." He said. " _Yes._ " Ellie thought and mentally punched her fist into the air. "Great, I'm starving." she said happily. She slid off the table, picked up her pack and headed to the door.

"Before we head inside however, there are a few things I want to talk to you two about." Carlos said, his voice suddenly serious. Ellie stopped and half turned to look back at him. She did not like the tone in his voice. "Okay." Clementine said, sounding a little worried herself. "What about?" Ellie asked, she suspected she was not going to like what he was about to say. "Last night, me and the others were talking, and we think it would be best if you two stayed here, with us.". Ellie responded with a "thus" sound to his suggestion and said, "Clem almost got shot by Nick yesterday and you and Rebecca "hinted strongly" that you did not want to have anything to do with us. Why the hell would we want to stay!?".

"Because it's in your best interest." Carlos said, with the same sternness he had used when he ordered Sarah back into the cabin. "You two have been separated from your groups. We don't know where your friends are or if they're even alive. There are more lurkers in the forest than ever before. It's not a safe place to be, especially for two children. Most of the animals are gone as well and winter is coming. There is nothing out there for you to eat and I doubt you have enough food on you to last the both of you long enough to find more."

Ellie tried to think of something that she could say to counter Carlos argument, but it was difficult to find any. Carlos had made several valid points. The only food Ellie had left in her pack was a single can of beans and the lunch box with dog meat. It wouldn't last her and Clementine a day and the forest had proven to be almost bare of anything edible and full of stalkers to boot. Ellie knew she could kill several stalkers no problem if she saw them coming at a distance during the day. But stalkers were just as active during the night and could easily sneak up on them in the dark if they weren't paying attention. Another problem was that Ellie's gun only had five bullets left and she had lost four of her seven arrows in the skirmish with the stalkers yesterday.

Ellie's hands clenched into fists. As much as it pained her to admit it, the odds of them making it out of the forest alive was small. Ellie scowl and glared at Carlos, who met it with stoic calmness. He had the upper hand in this argument and he knew it. That made Ellie even more angry. She opened her mouth and was about to stubbornly declare that they could make it on their own, but Clementine spoke first.

"Ellie, I think we should stay."

Ellie broke off her staring match with Carlos to look at Clementine in disbelief. She hadn't expected this. Out of the two of them, Clem had the most reasons to not want to stay with these people. Nick had almost shot her, Rebecca had insisted that they should kill her just to be safe and Carlos had ordered that she'd be locked up in the shed. Although, Ellie had to admit that even though she didn't like it, Carlos order was an understandable one that she herself probably would have used if she had been in his position.

Seeing the look on Ellie's face, Clementine continued, "I think Carlos is right. We won't last long out there on our own. I was almost killed several times yesterday. I think we'll be safer here."

"Safer!" Ellie almost shouted. "Nick tried to kill you yesterday! And you want to live in the same house as him! what if he tries something like that again?".

"He won't." Carlos assured.

"Wasn't talking to you." Ellie snapped.

"I don't think he will." Clementine said, "You saw how he reacted when he found out the truth. He feels guilty for what he did.". Yes, Ellie had seen how Nick reacted. But even if Nick did feel guilt for what he had done, it did not mean he could be trusted. He was too jumpy and trigger happy. Ellie was about to say so, however, Clementine wasn't done talking. "And I'm tired of traveling all the time. That's all I have done for these past two years. Going from one place to the next. Always on the road, only stopping to sleep or scavenge for food and I'm tired of it. I want time to rest. I want to be able to sleep without having to worry about being eaten or shot!".

Ellie opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again when she couldn't think of anything to say to that. She could see the determination in Clementine's eyes and it told her that she wasn't going to change her mind, no matter what Ellie said. Clementine wanted to stay, to feel a measure of safety for the first time in years. Ellie had nothing against the idea of feeling safe, hell it was one of the reasons she had left Boston. Ellie's rebellious behavior at school had caught the attention of the military and they had kept a close eye on her after that and had repeatedly tried to punish the defiance out of her. If Ellie hadn't left when she did, she would most likely have ended up on Spears list of people that needed to disappear eventually.

When Ellie had left Boston, she had done so in the company of people she had known and trusted. These people on the other hand, this cabin group, was almost a complete unknown to her. Could they be trusted not to stab them in the back? She did not know. Ellie liked Pete, he reminded her a bit of Winston, the military horse master from the QZ, although less drunk and grumpy. And both Luke and Alvin had been very nice to her. On the other hand, there was authoritarian Carlos, trigger happy Nick and Rebecca the bitch. Ellie did not want to stay in a group where half the people were assholes you couldn't fully trust.

She could still leave, but she would do so without Clementine. Her chances of survival out there would be a little better without having to worry about or share her food with the younger girl, but she would also be alone again with no one guarding her back. Ellie's heart contracted painfully in her chest, it felt like a hand had grabbed hold of it and was slowly squeezing it. She did not want to be alone, not again, not ever again. Ellie's shoulders slumped in defeat when she realized her choice had been made for her. "Fine, we'll stay." She said quietly, the words leaving a bad taste in her mouth.

"Good." Carlos said and nodded in approval, which made Ellie feel even worse. He folded his arms across his chest, "There is also one other thing I want to talk to you about before we go inside. My daughter."

"What about her?" Ellie asked.

"She's not like either of you. You might not get it initially, but once you've been around her for a while you'll understand.". The two girls shared a look of confusion. Ellie hadn't seen anything yesterday to indicate that something was wrong with Sarah, other than the fact that she seemed to obey her father blindly. "What do you mean?" Clementine asked. Carlos took a deep breath, "she's…sensitive".

"What! She's going to keel over if we sneeze at her or something?" Ellie asked sarcastically. Carlos shot her what she now thought of as his trademark glare. "No! it's not like that." he said sharply. He shut his eyes and took another deep breath. When he opened them again he was visibly calmer. "If Sarah knew how bad the world is...what it's really like out there, she would…" he broke himself off and seemed to struggle with finding the right words, "…cease to function.".

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, time out. Are you saying that she doesn't know that the world has gone to hell?" Ellie asked, astonished that someone could be that ignorant. Carlos shook his head, "no. Not exactly. She knows that the dead are walking and that they attack the living. But she doesn't know how bleak our future truly is. How hard it is to get food, how easily we could all be killed or how cruel and evil people can be towards one another if it means survival.". He looked between the two of them sternly, "I don't want you to say anything that might upset her."

Ellie could hardly believe what she was hearing. The old world was dead, but rather than trying to make his daughter adapt to this new horrible one they all lived in, Carlos had been keeping her inside a bubble of ignorance and he was now telling them to help him keep it from bursting. "That's bullshit. You can't babysit her forever. She needs to learn how to survive or she won't make it. She needs to grow up.".

"YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT SHE NEEDS." Carlos roared, his calm demeanor gone in an instance. "She's my little girl. She's all I have left and I'm telling you to not talk to her about how horrible it is out there. Do you understand!?". He eyed them both sharply. Clementine hesitated for a second before she nodded. "I promise." She said quietly. Carlos turned to Ellie, who sighed in exasperation of what she considered to be overprotective stupidity. "Fine." she said in an annoyed tone, "I promise I won't tell her how fucked up the world is or how to survive in it. Happy?".

"I'd also appreciate it if you wouldn't curse in her presence".

Ellie sighed, "I'll try. Is there anything else "dad"? Or can we go now? I'm hungry". Carlos frowned in disapproval but said, "breakfast should be ready now." and led them out of the shed and towards the house.

Luke was sitting next to a downcast Nick on the stairs leading up to the porch of the house. He was saying something to his friend that could not be heard from where Ellie and the others were. Nick had his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. Probably to give the two some privacy, Carlos steered Ellie and Clementine towards a door on the side of the house that Ellie hadn't seen yesterday. As they neared, Ellie caught the scent of food in the air. Whatever it was they were making for breakfast, it smelled so good it made her mouth water.

Alvin was standing by the stove and stirring the content of a pot when the trio entered the Kitchen. He looked up from the content of the pot at them and he threw Carlos a questioning glance. "She's okay, she won't turn." Carlos answered his unasked question. The doctor looked back at the two girls, "I'm going upstairs to wake Sarah. You two stay here. And wash your hands before we eat.". He didn't wait for a response from the two before he walked through the door on the other side of the room.

" _It hasn't even been five minutes since we joined and he is already bossing us around._ " Ellie scowled and glared at the closing door. "Don't let his strict demeanor get to you. He's a doctor, he's used to giving orders." Alvin said and gave the two girls a warm smile, "Good morning by the way. I'm glad to see your both alright.". Clementine greeted him back with a "good morning." and a smile of her own. "Morning." Ellie greeted.

"There's a bucket of water over there that you can wash yourself with." Alvin nodded in the direction of the sink.

Ones she and Clementine was done washing their hands and faces, Ellie walked up next to Alvin and leaned her elbows on the counter, "so, what's for breakfast?" she asked. "Rice and deer." Alvin answered, he eyed the content of the pot. "Well, mostly rice anyways. I had hoped the deer would last longer but we…kinda let ourselves go last night and ate a little more than we should. Might not be enough of it left to fill everyone stomachs today" he said guiltily.

" _Damn._ " Ellie thought as she tried to hide her disappointment. The deer hadn't been very big so it shouldn't have been a surprise to her that seven people – nine if she counted herself and Clem – could eat most of it in one go, but it was. Ellie had really been looking forwards to filling her stomach again, it was such a rare thing to be able to do that these days. If only they had more meat, then she could feel the satisfaction of a full stomach again. She stared longingly at the slices of meat crackling in the frying pan. The sight made her wish she had had a pan of her own. It was a hell of a lot easier to fry your food evenly in a pan than over an open fire. " _Wait…open fire! The dog meat!_ " Ellie mentally kicked herself in the ass for forgetting about it. She unslung her backpack and pulled out the box and placed it on the kitchen counter.

"What's this?" Alvin asked, eying the box. "Dog meat." Ellie answered and opened the box so that he could see its content. Alvin gave her a long sideways look. "This wouldn't happen to be the same dog that bit Clementine, would it?" he asked suspiciously. "Yup" Ellie answered, feeling a small sense of pride at the memory of saving Clem's life. Alvin eyed the meat critically and scratched his beard thoughtfully, "hmm, this dog. Did it look sick?".

His question took Ellie aback, she hadn't thought about the possibility that the dog could have been ill. "I…don't think so." She answered uncertainly. She looked to Clementine, who had seated herself at the dinner table. "Clem, did the dog act weird…other than attacking you I mean?" she asked. Clementine's brow furrowed, "weird how?" she asked. "Was it frothing at the mouth?" Alvin asked, "or twitching all the time? Like it couldn't control itself.". Clem shook her head "no. it was just very thin from starvation.". Alvin eyed the dog meat with hesitation. "Hmm, I'll cook it a bit extra, just to be sure. Should probably put it in a separate bowl to and tell the other what it is before we serve it to them. Luke's not going to like this." he whispered the last part to himself.

Alvin pulled out a new cooking pan and placed it on the stove, then proceeded to dump the dog meat into it. With nothing better to do, Ellie walked over to the table and took the seat on Clementine's left. "So, where were you two heading before you ran into Pete and Luke?" Alvin asked, he flipped the sliced pieces of deer meat in the pan. The two girls gave each other a quick glance, Clementine spoke up first, "at the time we hadn't decided".

"I wanted to go west but Clementine wants to go up north." Ellie elaborated.

"North?" Alvin echoed.

"Yeah, Clementine says there's supposedly a big camp up there or something."

"The one near lake Michigan?" Alvin asked.

His words made Clementine sit up straight in her chair, "you've heard of it!?" she almost shouted in excitement. Her eyes stared at him hungrily for information. "Yeah, I've heard a rumor or two of it. To tell you the truth we've been talking about trying to go there ourselves…I voted against it". His last words took Clementine visibly aback, "why?" she asked. Alvin scratched his head and sighed, "with Becca pregnant and winter getting close, it feels like a bad time to start searching for a place that might not exist and Ohio is a long way from he-".

"OHIO?!" Clementine cried out, making both Ellie and Alvin jump in surprise. "I thought Wellington was in Michigan?". Alvin shrugged, "I heard it was in northern Ohio. Not too far from the Michigan border.". Ellie mentally facepalmed herself. " _No wonder we couldn't find the place on the map. We were looking in the wrong goddamn state._ _Why the hell didn't we check the neighboring states for Wellington?_ "

"I thought the reason we couldn't find it on the map was because the camp had been built from scratch and just named Wellington."

"If that's true, then it's an even better reason not to go up there. We could probably spend month looking for the place and not find it. I wish we could just stay here for the winter but…" Alvin sighed, "that's impossible."

"Because of the walkers?" asked Clementine, "Carlos said that there was more of them then there usually are."

"And there isn't much food to get around here either." Ellie added.

"Your both right." Alvin sighed, "The lurkers have scared most of the wildlife away. The only animal we can hunt with certainty now, is fish. But we can't live on that forever. There are probably more things to hunt down south where its warmer. Hopefully, by the time we leave this place, the others have come to the same conclusion and we head south."

"I can get behind that." Ellie said and put her hands behind her head. She leaned back in her chair until it balanced on its back legs. She pushed her knees up against the underside of the table to help keep herself from falling backwards. "I never liked winter. It's too damn cold.". Alvin chuckled, "amen to that.".

The kitchen door opened and Nick and Luke walked in. Seeing the two, Luke immediately walked over and took the seat opposite of Clementine. "Looks like your making yourself at home." He said with a smile and nodded at Ellie. "Are you staying or leaving?" he asked. "We're staying." Clementine answered for the both of them with a smile. Her words made Luke's own smile widened, "I'm glad to hear that. I'd hate for you to go out there on your own. I know you two can handle yourselves, but I feel a lot better knowing that you're with us."

Before either Clem or Ellie could say anything in response, Nick walked around the table towards them. Clementine tensed at his approach and Ellie lowered her chair back to the floor so fast the chair legs made a loud bang when they connected with the wood. He stopped and put his hand on the back of the chair on Clementine's right. An almost complete silence descended over the kitchen. The only noise that could be heard was the sound of the food cooking on the stove. Everyone was staring at Nick to see what he was going to do. The attention made Nick visibly uncomfortable, he scratched the back of his head and after a second or two cleared his throat. "Hey, look. Um…" he said awkwardly, "I just wanted to say that I'm sorry for…well…almost shooting you yesterday and being a general dick to the both of you. I got kinda aggro and that was definitely not cool."

Neither Clem nor Ellie said anything in response to his words, they just sat there quietly and stared at him, which seemed to make him even more uncomfortable. "Nick's been known to go off ones in a while. Please, try not to hold it against him." Luke said from the other side of the table. " _To late for that._ " Ellie thought, because she did hold it against him. Just because they had joined this group did not mean that Ellie would just forgive and forget what had happened. Nick would need to do a lot more than just say that he was sorry before Ellie would forgive him. That was a sentiment that Clementine however did not share with her.

"You were just trying to protect your friends. I get it." she said sympathetically.

"I didn't mean to be so harsh. I just…we had a bad experience once." Nick said.

"You and everyone else in the world." Ellie muttered bitterly.

Ignoring Ellie's remark, Clementine asked, "what happened?". Nick pulled out the chair and turned it to face her before he sat down. The two girls looked at him expectantly, but he didn't say anything, he just sat there with a sorrowful look on his face. "Nick lost his mom." Luke said ones it was clear that Nick wasn't going to talk. " _So, I was right. Nick did lose someone close to him._ " Ellie thought. The knowledge that she had been right about Nick's loss gave her no satisfaction.

"We took care of someone who got bit." Luke continued.

"It was my fault. I…" Nick started to say but Luke cut him off. "It was "no one's" fault." he said, taking extra care to emphasize the words "no one's". He had probably told Nick this many times before now and would likely have to say them many more times before Nick took them to heart, if he ever did. Ellie knew from personal experience that a guilty conscience of another's death was not easy to get rid of. When Nick did not react to his words Luke continued the story, "We thought we could control it, but…we couldn't. And then she turned and his mom was standing right there and she got attacked…there was nothing we could do about it."

Nick closed his eyes when Luke spoke of the moment of the attack and did not open them again until he had finished. His eyes were glossy from holding back tears. After a few seconds of silence Nick stood up. "Anyway, hopefully you'll understand." He said melancholically. "Bad thinks have happened to everyone. But, yeah, I get it." Clem said, "I'm sorry, about your mom". Nick gave her an appreciative smile, "Thanks…I'll…I'll go and wake Pete." He said, his voice breaking with emotion. he turned and headed for the door.

Ellie watched him as he left. He seemed to walk a bit straighter, as if a burden had been lifted from his shoulders. Ellie still hated him for trying to kill Clementine, but at the same time she felt sorry for him. Ellie never knew her mother, she had died shortly after giving birth to her. Mrs Hale was the closest thing she had ever had to a real mother and she'd had to chare her with over twenty other kids so it was not the same. Even so, she had felt a horrible sense of loss when Mrs Hale had been killed. It was a hole in her heart that could never really be filled again. Ellie could very well imagine the pain Nick was suffering now.

The door to the kitchen hadn't even fully closed behind Nick before it opened again. This time it was Rebecca that walked in. She stopped dead in her tracks the moment she laid eyes on Ellie and Clementine. Ellie couldn't stop herself from smirking when she saw the expression of wide eyed disbelief on the woman's face. "Y _eah, that's right. We're still alive bitch._ ".

"What? do I have something on my face?" Ellie asked whiles trying to keep her smirk from becoming a head splitting grin. Rebecca quickly composed herself. She scowled at Ellie. "I see you two are still alive." she said coldly as she walked past them towards the kitchen sink. "Yeah, sorry to disappoint you." Ellie replied with the same coldness, "I know how much you were looking forwards to seeing our corpses".

"Ellie." Luke said with a warning tone. The look he gave her along with the slight shaking of his head told her that he wanted her to stop antagonizing Rebecca now before things escalated into a full-fledged fight. Unfortunately for him, Rebecca was in the mood for a fight. She put down the towel she had used to dry her newly washed hands and shot Ellie a dirty look. "I wouldn't get too comfortable if I were you." she said threateningly. "Becca, please." Alvin said softly, "breakfast is almost ready. Let's not start a fight now.". Rebecca ignored her husband pleas for peace. She crossed her arm over her pregnant belly, "you two got what you came for, now leave. You're wearing out your welcome." She said harshly.

"Well too bad for you, we're staying." Ellie replied with the same level of harshness. She stood up from the table, walked up to Rebecca and – mimicking the older woman – crossed her arms. "So, you'd better get used to seeing us sitting "comfortably" in your house, you vicious bit-."

"Alright that's enough, both of you!" Luke said sharply and stood up from the table, his brow furrowed in irritation. "Now I know what happened yesterday didn't give the best circumstances for a first impression but you two need to get over it. There is enough arguments and insults being traded in this house as it is. We don't need you two adding to it by starting a shouting match every time you're in the same room. So, let's just all calm down."

As he said the last words, the kitchen door swung open and Sarah walked in with an excited smile on her face. "Good morni-" she started to say but the words died on her lips and her smile vanished when she sensed the tension in the room. She looked between Luke, Rebecca and Ellie. "Is…something wrong?" she asked anxiously. There was a short pause, everyone looked at Sarah and then at each other. "No." Rebecca answered for them with a much calmer and softer voice then Ellie had heard from the women. "No, nothing's wrong. We were just having a disagreement, that's all." She said and gave Sarah a reassuring smile, "it's nothing serious honey.". She turned and gave Elie a warning look, "right?". Remembering Carlos's words and what he had made her promise, Ellie said, "yeah, it's nothing.". she gave Rebecca one last venomous look, then walked back to her seat and sat down.

With the conflict effectively ended – or more accurately put on hold – Luke sat back down on his chair and Rebecca walked over to help Alvin. Sarah worriedly looked between the three one more time, but when no one did anything hostile, her smile returned. She practically bounced on her feet's as she approached the table and sat down next to Clementine. "Hi, I'm Sarah. Your Clementine, right?" she greeted with a tone as happy as her smile.

"Yeah." Clementine answered.

"And your Ellie. Dad told me your names last night. This is great. I haven't meet another girl my age since way before. It's hard being the only girl in the house."

"I know what that is like." Ellie said, "I was the only kid in my group and it sucked."

"The one you got separated from?!" Sarah asked then lowered her voice into a conspiratorial whisper. "I heard the others talk about that last night. Is it true that you come from Boston and that they have a huge concrete wall around the city?"

"Yeah, I'm from Boston and yeah, there is a concrete wall about four stories high, but it's only around a small part of the city, not the whole."

"We used to live in a place that had walls too. They were only made of wood and wasn't very high, but at least they protected us from…you know, those things out there." Sarah said the last part with a shudder.

Sarah's words peaked Ellie's interest. " _So, they used to live in a compound or camp that had walls that were strong enough to protect them before they came to the cabin_." But this information raised one big question to Ellie, if the place was as safe as Sarah said, why had they left? Ellie opened her mouth to ask.

"What are you talking about?"

Ellie head snapped in the direction of the voice and saw Carlos. Ellie had been so wrapped in her own thoughts that she hadn't even noticed him enter. He had his arms crossed over his chest and was looking at the three girls with suspicious eyes. He must have seen the unease on Sarah's face, maybe he thought that Ellie and Clem were breaking their promise to him and talking about something horrible to his daughter.

"Girl stuff." Ellie answered quickly before any of the others could say anything.

Carlos raised a disbelieving eyebrow, but before he could say anything however, Alvin called out "breakfast is ready.". He carried the pot of rice and placed in the center of the table followed closely by Rebecca who carried the plates and cutlery. "Did I hear someone say breakfast?" Pete said with a yawn as he and his nephew walked through the door. He greeted the room all with a "good morning" and gave Clementine a warm smile that she returned. With food now on the table, everyone took their seats. Sarah, Clementine, Ellie and Nick sat on one side of the table and Rebecca, Alvin, Luke and Pete on the other. Carlos took his place at the far end of the table, where he had Nick on his right and Pete on his left.

Alvin walked around the table with the pan of deer meat and gave everyone an equal share of the meat. Ellie licked her lips in anticipation and her stomach made a low rumbling sound when she looked at the juicy meat on the plate in front of her. She was tempted to just start tearing into it then and there, but the group might have a ritual or prayer they did before eating. Ellie was not in the mood to listen to Carlos or Rebecca reprimanding her for lack of manners, so she restrained her impulse and sat still. As she stared in anticipation at the food on the table, Ellie noticed that one thing was missing. "Alvin." she said to gain his attention. Alvin – who had just sat down next to his wife – looked at her, she nodded her head in the direction of the bowl of meat that was standing next the stow. "Oh, right. I forgot." he said and got up to fetch it.

"Where did you get that from? I thought we ate most of the meat last night?" Nick asked when Alvin put the bowl down on the table. "Ellie had some more in her backpack that she gave me." Alvin answered as he sat down. "You had more meat!" Rebecca said with an accusatory tone. "Yeah! what of it?" Ellie snapped back, "the deal was that we'd give you most of the deer in return for a place to stay the night and medical help for Clementine. Which we did!".

"Can't we please have a nice quite breakfast for once? without anyone shouting?" Sarah asked in a small pleading voice that no one seemed to notice. Rebecca opened her mouth to retort to Ellie's defiance, but she was cut off by Pete, "leave the girl be Rebecca. She's right. She held up her part of the deal.". Despite his words, Rebecca still looked ready to argue the point.

Perhaps in an attempt to ease the tension around the table, Luke cleared his throat and asked "out of curiosity, what kind of meat is this? Squirrel? Fish?". Ellie felt a lump form in her throat when she realized that he had directed his question at her. She had hoped that she wouldn't have to be the one to tell him, since Alvin had said that Luke wasn't going to like the answer to that question. With an effort, she swallowed the lump and said, "It's dog meat."

She had said the words quietly, yet everyone heard her. The corners of Luke's mouth fell and he eyed the bowl with open disgust. Yesterday, Pete had talked about how good at poker he was, Ellie saw now that it hadn't been an empty boast. Pete had a perfectly impassive poker face on, Ellie couldn't tell if he was disgusted or disapproved of the meats origins in any way. Rebecca, who had looked so ready to start a fight over the new meat, instantly lost interest in it, her face twisting to mirror that of Luke's. Carlos kept his face neutral but his feelings for the meats origin became plane when he told Sarah not to eat any of it. He needn't have worried, Sarah's eyes had gone wide in shock and her face had paled to the point that she looked a little sick, Ellie noticed that her hands had also started to shake just slightly.

The uncomfortable silence around the table that Ellie's response had created was broken by Alvin who said weakly "it's there if anyone wants more to eat.". Most of them did not. In the end, only Pete, Nick and Ellie dared to eat any of it.

Ellie spent most of the breakfast eating in silence, she only spoke when Sarah or one of the others asked her a question, which wasn't often. Beside her, Clementine sat listening to Sarah, who was absolutely delighted to have someone close to her own age to talk to. She talked almost nonstop between mouthfuls about everything from how she had wanted to visit Paris to Clementine's hairstyles – "it looks very good on you" – and how boring it was to be the only teenager living in the cabin and that there was hardly anything for her to do.

Sarah also bombarded them with questions about themselves and where they came from. Since Carlos had made them promise not to say anything that could upset her, Ellie found it hard to have a conversation with Sarah. Thankfully, Sarah was currently focusing all her attention at Clementine. They were in a deep discussion about school of all things. Ellie mentally shook her head. Sarah was behaving so normal that it was unnerving. Ellie had to admit that Carlos had done an excellent job of shielding her from the truth, she clearly didn't know shit about how fucked up the world was now.

Ellie looked down to the far end of the table to see what the man himself thought of his daughter's interaction with Clem. It turned out he wasn't watching them at all for the moment. Carlos was in a discussion with Pete, Luke and Nick. "Going on another hunt is an unnecessary risk, there's nothing out there but lurkers." Carlos was saying. "Ellie managed to catch that deer, so there must still be some animals left. Besides, if we kill some of them lurkers we'll minimize the danger for the rest of the group and some of them might have something useful on them, like food or ammo. We're starting to run low on both." Pete countered.

"I still think it's too great a risk to take. You're more likely to use up what little ammunition we have left defending yourself on this hunt then finding more."

"Carlos is right." Nick interjected before his uncle could say anything to counter Carlos's argument. "If we're going to save ammo, then we'll need to get up close and personal and that's dangerous. And if we make too much noise we'll only attract more of them."

"That's what the crossbow is for, Nick." Luke pointed out.

"Fat lot of good that think is going to do us out there. Or had you forgotten that you guys used up most of the bolts yesterday!"

"If you guys want to find ammo or food, we could just go to where we met yesterday and ransack the stalkers we downed." Ellie interjected from her end the table, "and we can pick up my arrows whiles we're there.". The table went quiet, everyone stared at Ellie. "You want to go back out there? For arrows?" Sarah asked, she sounded surprised and a little confused. "I only had seven arrows in total and I used up four of them out there." Ellie explained to her and jerked her thumb over her shoulder, "and I don't know how to make more".

At the end of the table Pete nodded in understanding. "She's got a point." he said, "I used up two of our three crossbow bolts out there to. I can make replacements, but they won't be as good. We should go back and get them.". Carlos looked thoughtful for a moment then asked, "how far from here is this place". Pete shrugged in response and said, "about a twenty-minute walk".

Carlos nodded, "then I agree that we should go and get them. However, the woods are full of lurkers. I don't think it's a good idea for the girls to go out there with you. It's too dangerous.". Ellie felt her cheeks heat up in indignation at the implication of her being unable to protect herself. "I can handle myself!" she said, "I'm not helpless! I lived in the forest for two days before I met you guys.". Carlos gave her a quick sideways look but otherwise ignored her.

"The lurkers are most likely gone by now. It should be safe and it's not so far from here." Pete said, he leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms.

"Even so, I think it would be best for them to stay here. There is no reason to put their lives in unnecessary danger."

For a second, Ellie thought it looked like Pete would continue to argue against Carlos's points, but to her disappointment he said "Alright. Me and Nick will go get them. It shouldn't take long." and rose from the table. Alvin quickly stood up, "I'll come with you." he said. "Alvin?!" Rebecca exclaimed in surprise, her face a mix between shock and fear. "It's alright Becca. You heard what he said, it safe. Besides, I'm sick of sitting around here all day doing nothing.".

"Doing nothing! Your protecting our baby and your calling that nothing!" Rebecca snapped back.

Luke – who clearly saw that Rebecca was about to start a major argument with her husband – turned to the girls and said, "Sarah, why don't you take Ellie and Clementine upstairs and show them your room?". Sarah beamed at his idea and practically jumped up from her chair and grabbed Clementine by her good arm. "Come on, this way." she said excitedly and almost dragged Clementine out of the room. Ellie – who had no interest in listening to Rebecca rage – quickly followed them out of the kitchen, " _I've heard enough of her shouting for one day, thank you very much._ ".

The living room that they entered made up most of the house. It was cozily furnished with one bookshelf standing in the corner, a half-moon table by the stairs, a metal stove, a small TV table with – surprise, surprise – a TV on it and two sofas that was facing each other with a small table between them. The room had three doors if you didn't count the one to the kitchen. One behind them at the end of the short hallway that lead outside, one on the left and one on the right around the corner from the hallway.

They followed Sarah up the stairs. As she took the first step, Ellie heard Rebecca's muffled shout from the kitchen. " _Poor Alvin._ " She thought and mentally shook her head at how such a nice man could marry such a bitch. Ones they reached the top they turned right. There were two doors, one to the right and another one to the left. "This is my room." Sarah said as she opened the door to the right and walked in, Ellie and Clementine followed.

The room was small and most of the space was taken up by a bed that stood in the middle of the room. There were three other furnishers in the room, a nightstand that stood next to the bed, a small book shelf standing next to that and a wooden chair that was placed against the wall next to the door. "it's not very big but at least I have my own room." Sarah said as she turned to face them, "Rebecca and Alvin share the bedroom downstairs. My dad, Pete, Nick and Luke take turns sleeping in the other room up here. The others sleep on the sofa's in the living room, when they're not on night watch that is." She added the last part as an afterthought.

Ellie nodded in understanding. The cabin was small and only had three bedrooms. With Rebecca and Alvin – a married couple who was expecting a baby soon and needed a comfortable bed – occupying one of them and Sarah – a teenage girl with anxiety problems and an overprotective dad – occupying the other, it made sense for the rest of them to take turns sleeping in the only remaining bed. Thanks to her dad, Sarah had most likely had this room completely to herself from the day her group got to the cabin. Now that Ellie and Clem were here, that would most likely change. Ellie silently prayed that Sarah did not snore.

As her eyes wandered the room, she noticed a light blue book that was laying on the bed. As Ellie read the yellow letters on the spine, her eyes widened in disbelief. "N _o fucking way!_ " She walked closer and saw that her eyes were not deceiving her. "You got a copy of the Guurgles!" she said in astonishment. "What's the Guurgles?" Clem asked, not seeing what Ellie had picked up. "It's a book about trans-dimensional body snatchers." Sarah answered, "it's very good, have you read it?" she asked Ellie excitedly. Ellie shook her head, "no, but I've been trying to get my hands on a copy ever since I read the call of Tir'garash.". Ellie picked up the book from the bed and held it up in front of her. She had searched for this book so damn long she had almost given up hope of ever finding a copy.

"That book was so creepy" Sarah said from behind her, "especially if you read it at night. I had nightmares for days after I read the part when the tomb doors opened. I have it over there if you want to read it again." she visibly shivered and pointed to the almost empty book shelf where Ellie saw a black book with the familiar title written on its spine. "Thanks, but I've already read that one to death. I'd rather read this one, if you don't mind?" Ellie asked and gestured to the book in her hand. "No, of course not. Go ahead." Sarah answered. Ellie thanked her and sat down on the bed and opened the book and started reading.

The next couple of hours went by quickly. Ellie spent most of that time laying on Sarah's bed reading, only taking her eyes from the book whenever Carlos came by to check on them. Meanwhile, Clementine and Sarah spent their time sitting on the floor, talking and playing a board game that Ellie had never heard of called Global Menace. The book was as amazing and addictive as Ellie had hoped it would be and It wasn't until she had passed the one-hundred-page margin that she managed to put the book down to rest her eyes.

"I give up." She heard Clementine sigh from her position on the floor, "I can't beat you.". Ellie crawled over to the end of the bed and looked down on the floor. Clem and Sarah had stopped playing Global Menace about an hour ago and was now playing chess. Whiles she didn't know all the rules, Ellie could tell from the state of the board that Clementine was getting her ass kicked. "Do you want to try Ellie?" Sarah asked when she noticed Ellie watching them. "Sure, but you'll have to explain how all the pieces work. I've never played chess." Ellie said and switched places with Clementine. Sarah gave her a quick rundown of how all the pieces were allowed to move. "Alright" Ellie said ones she had finished, "let's do this."


	4. Chapter 4

**SURPRISE!**

 **I know Christmas is over but i don't care, I'm gonna say it anyway. Merry Christmas and Happy a New Year to you all.**

 **I told you guys in the last chapter that I had to cut it so that I at least could get something out this year. Well, my boss at work gave me this week off and I've been spending a good part of it in front of my computer, drinking energi drinks (I'm pretty high on caffeine right now) and working like mad to finish this chapter. I'm actually surprised I managed to get this out before the new year.**

 **To the guest reviewer of the last chapter, you make a valid point. I could give you an argument about how Carlos don't trust Ellie and that because she was armed with a gun, he was worried that she would try to kill Pete, Nick and Alvin when they were out in the woods. But I won't. The the truth of the matter is that I had originally planed for her to go out into the woods with them, but I ended up cutting it out of the story. Why? Two reasons. One: I couldn't think of anything interesting to happen. Two: I wanted to get the damn chapter out. So you kan write it down to me being a lazy ass.**

 **With that out of the way, on with the story.**

* * *

"Check."

Sarah placed her tower three squares from Ellie's king. Ellie glowered at the chess board in front of her that was now almost completely empty of the white pieces she'd been controlling. "Son-of-a..." she started to say when she remembered her promise to Carlos and stopped herself at the last second from finishing the curse.

"Another win for Sarah." Clementine said from her place on the couch next to said girl. Like the last three times, Clementine hadn't even bothered to look up from the book she was reading, she could tell how the game was going by the rising frustration in Ellie's voice. They had moved down to the living room so that they could sit more comfortably. The move was as much for their benefit as it was for Carlos who – to Ellie's annoyance – had regularly come up to check on them every ten goddamn minutes. This arrangement made it much easier for him to keep an eye on them without disturbing them.

"She hasn't beaten me yet." Ellie said stubbornly even though she knew she couldn't win. She moved her king one square to the right. Sarah answered by moving her remaining bishop so that it was three squares diagonally from Ellie's king and said "check". Ellie slumped back against the sofa with a groan.

"That's 6-0 to Sarah" Clementine said, she lowered her book and gave Ellie an "I told you so" look. Ellie let out another groan, this one louder than the last one. Clementine was right, she had lost. It didn't matter what she did, Sarah would just keep on checking her king when it was her turn until Ellie was checkmate. Taking her groan as a sign of surrender, Sarah asked hesitantly "another game?". Before Ellie could answer, the kitchen door opened and Luke's head poked through, "dinners ready girls." he said.

"We're coming" the trio answered in unison.

All the others had already seated themselves around the table by the time the trio entered the kitchen. Pete, Nick and Alvin had returned several hours earlier with Ellie's arrows, what was left of them that is. The shaft of two of them had been trampled and snapped by the stalkers that chased them yesterday, so now she was down to only five arrows. "I can probably make new shafts for you. Ones that's done you can use the old tips and fletching and you'll have new arrows." Pete had told her when he showed her the broken arrows, "they won't be as good as the old ones but it's better than nothing.". Ellie had happily thanked him for the offer and asked if he could teach her how to make them herself, in case she needed to replace any more in the future. Pete had smiled at the suggestion and said that he'd show her tomorrow. Ellie was looking forward to it.

When she had been younger, Ellie had often dreamed that one day a distant relative, who just now learned of her existence would show up at the orphanage and take her away. No one ever did of course. It had been the dream of a naïve child, who didn't know that real life was not like the story's in the books she liked to read. But even so, she had always wondered what it would be like to have someone like that in her life. After her interactions with Pete, she thought she understood what it would feel like now and although she would never admit it out loud, she was starting to feel a bit jealous of Nick for having such a cool uncle.

Ellie had hoped for another cooked meal like the one they got for breakfast when she sat down next to Clementine at the table. What she got was a bowl of porridge. Trying not to let her disappointment show, Ellie took a spoon full of it into her mouth. It didn't taste bad, in truth it didn't taste much at all. She swallowed and took another spoon full, food was food after all. If it was one thing Ellie had learned since the outbreak in Boston, it was that in this world, you couldn't afford to be picky, not if you wanted to live.

"So, what have you kids been up to?" Alvin asked from the other side of the table. "Nothing much. Reading books and playing games." Ellie answered for the three of them. "To be honest, I'm starting to get a bit stiff from sitting still so much. I could use some fresh air and stretch my legs." She added. "It's safer in here." Carlos said, as if that settled the matter. " _Yeah, and it's also getting stuffy and boring in here to._ " Ellie contemplated saying, but though better of it. Pete seemed to have read her mind though, "Me and Nick are going down to the river after dinner to check on our fish traps. Your welcome to tagalong if you want?"

"Really?! I'm in." Ellie said, jumping at the chance to get out. "Can I come to? I've never seen a fish trap before." Clementine asked, she sounded almost as eager as Ellie felt to leave the cabin for a while. "Sure you can." Pete said. From the corner of her eyes, Ellie saw Sarah looking at them, a sad expression on her face. Her eyes moved down to the bowl of half eaten porridge in front of her, after a few seconds she looked up at her father. "Can I go to?" she asked meekly. "Absolutely not!" Carlos said sharply. Her father's words seem to hit Sarah like a whip, she visibly flinched back and shrank into her chair. "Sorry dad." She said as if she had just broken something valuable.

Ellie scowled and glared at the doctor, she was sorely tempted to give Carlos a piece of her mind about his stupid overprotectiveness, but she knew it wouldn't do any good, hell, it would probably make things even worse. She wished Sarah would show some damn backbone and stand up for herself and defy her father, at least a little, but that seemed about as likely to happen as it was for Rebecca to be nice to Ellie and Clem.

With Sarah's poor attempt to join the fishing expedition crushed, Carlos turned to face Pete. "Pete, I don't think this is a good idea." he protested, "it's dangerous out there."

"So, what do you want to do Carlos? Lock them inside here forever?" Pete asked. He didn't wait for the doctor to answer before he continued, "I've seen them both in action and they are lot tougher than they look, besides, me and Nick will be with them. They will be fine."

"You did not seem to think so this morning." Carlos countered.

"I agreed with you earlier because there was a small chance that we might run into the lurkers that cornered them yesterday – which we didn't by the way – and that I thought they could use some more time to rest, they slept in a shed in case you had forgotten. They are rested now, and this isn't like going into a lurker infested part of the woods. We've been to the river hundreds of times without any problems. They'll be fine."

"That might be true. But even so, I do not like it."

"And when was the last time you liked anything Carlos?" Luke asked with humor in his voice and a wry smile on his face.

"This is not a joke." Carlos snapped, his tone dead serious. He gave Ellie and Clem a quick sideways look that Ellie couldn't read before focusing on Luke ones more. "I am trying to keep them safe and alive and the easiest way to do that is for them to stay in the cabin."

"It's not up to you to decide what the girls can and can't do Carlos." Pete said, now sounding irritated. "As a doctor, you have a lot of say in this house, but you're not the leader here.".

Luke nodded in agreement. "You can't unreasonably demand that they do everything you tell them to do Carlos."

Feeling that She couldn't let the others do all the talking for her and that she needed to add her own voice to the argument, Ellie said with perhaps more irritation in her voice then she had intended, "Yeah, you can't order me around. You're not my fucking dad.".

"Luckily for you." Carlos said. "If you had been my daughter, you would have been grounded in your room this instance for speaking like that."

" _If I had been your daughter, I'd probably been as blind and helpless as Sarah is_." Ellie almost said, but she bit back the words before she could utter them. Her lack of backbone, ignorance and anxiety problems notwithstanding, over the short hours they had spent together, Ellie had come to like Sarah and did not want to hurt her feelings. "But you're not my dad or the one in charge, so you can't stop us from going." Ellie said. "Who is the real leader here anyway?" she asked as an afterthought.

"That would be me." Pete answered.

"In emergency situations, yes. Which this isn't." Carlos countered, "otherwise we vote as a group."

"You're not seriously suggesting that we vote on this?" Luke asked, clearly thinking that the idea was ridiculous. "Luke's right Carlos." Pete said, crossing his arms and shaking his head, "your blowing this completely out of proportions. The girls can come with us to the river if they want and you're not going to stop them."

Carlos and Pete locked eyes for several seconds before Carlos broke off and looked around the table at the others. If he was looking for support, he found none. Alvin did not meet his gaze but continued to eat his food as if nothing was happening. Maybe he was tired of hearing all the bickering and hoped that by staying silent this would be over quickly. Rebecca did not seem to care one way or the other. Perhaps she hoped that something would happen out there, and that Clem and Ellie would die and be out of their hairs. She sure as hell had made her feelings about them staying in the cabin abundantly clear.

When Carlos finally turned to Nick, all he got was a "If they want to come, let them come. I got no problem with it.". Seeing that he was outnumbered and without any support, Carlos took a deep breath and slowly blew it out his nose. "I can see that there is no point in arguing about this any further." He said with a disapproving scowl, "I wipe my hands of this. Do what you want.". Ellie couldn't stop herself from smiling smugly at this victory over Carlos. It was perhaps a bit petty of her to do so, but after having both Clementine and Pete agreeing with him against her during the shed and breakfast arguments, a small part of Ellie had started to fear that he would continue to try and dominate her actions and movement like Spears and his military had tried to do in Boston, until she couldn't so much as take a shit without his permission.

The rest of the dinner was thankfully uneventful. Pete, Nick, Clem and Ellie left the cabin less than an hour later, after gathering up all the weapons and ammo they would need as protection for the trip. Pete and Nick had both armed themselves with a rifle each, Ellie had taken her bow and gun. Although she had loathed to do so, Ellie had left her trusted backpack behind, both as a sign of trust and also because Pete had insisted that she wouldn't need it. When she had protested and said that without it, she wouldn't have anything to have her arrows in, he had converted a small camping sack from the closet into a makeshift quiver that now hung diagonally on her back. Clementine was the only one in the group that was unarmed, something that Ellie was planning to rectify shortly. Before they had left, Carlos had made another fruitless attempt to convince them to stay in the cabin, or more precisely he had tried to convince Clementine to stay. He had come to the conclusion that Ellie was a lost cause and not worth wasting air on.

Ellie had waited until the four of them were out of eyesight of the house before she handed over her gun to Clementine. If Ellie had given her the gun in the house and Carlos had seen the exchange, he would no doubts have kicked up a storm about it. Clementine took the weapon and stuffed it into the back of her pants, grateful to have something to protect herself with. Whiles Nick had given them a worried sideways look when he saw what Ellie was doing, he didn't say anything. Neither did Pete for that matter, but then again this wasn't a big surprise, since he didn't have eyes in the back of his head. Ellie had a feeling the even if he had seen it, he wouldn't have cared.

The small fishing expedition had only walked for a few minutes when Nick suddenly stopped. "Hold up. I need to take a piss." He said and stepped off the path, through some bushes and into the forest. Pete, Clem and Ellie watched his retreating back. "Shouldn't he have gone before we left the cabin?" Clementine asked. Ellie simply shrugged, why Nick hadn't taken a piss before now was not a question that she considered worthy to waist brain power on. "When you got to go, you got to go. Come on." Pete said and started walking again.

"Shouldn't we wait for him?" Clementine asked. "He'll catch up." Pete said without looking back. Clementine threw a look in the direction Nick had walked off in. "Hey, I'm sure he'll be fine." Ellie said, putting as much reassurance as she could into her voice. She put her hand on Clem's shoulder and lightly squeezed it, "he knows the area and I'm sure Pete wouldn't leave him if he thought it was dangerous.". Clem hesitated for a second, then she nodded in agreement and the two of them followed Pete.

"I heard you two got an earful from Rebecca this morning." Pete said when they caught up to him, "ones she gets going there's no bringing her back."

"She started it." Ellie muttered, not really wanting to discuss the matter. Pete looked back over his shoulder at her, "and you didn't egg her on at all?" he asked with a raised eyebrow. Ellie huffed and refused to meet his eyes. Pete smiled and said, "Rebecca's bark's worse than her bite. I know it's hard, but try not to let her get to you.".

"What's her problem anyway?" Ellie asked, "she's acting like a total bitch."

"She got a lot on her mind lately. Bringing a baby into a world like this? And with everything else that's going on its no wonder if she's a bit hissy. It doesn't help that she was a bit hotheaded and stubborn to begin with. Kind of like someone else I know." Pete said and gave Ellie a sideways look, the corners of his mouth turned up in a small smile. Ellie felt her cheeks heat up in anger when she realized he was referring to her. "I'm nothing like Rebecca!" she snapped. "Of course you're not." Pete said sarcastically and his smile grew wider.

"How far is it to the river?" Clementine asked.

"It ain't much further." He answered. "Let's hope the traps caught something, it would be good to get some fresh fish on the table."

"I don't like fish." Ellie muttered.

"Now that's something I did not expect to hear. A girl who grew up by the ocean and don't like fish." Pete said.

"Just because I lived most of my life by the sea, doesn't mean I have to like fish." Ellie countered.

"Well that's true." Pete admitted with a small chuckled. "You know, when I was a kid I hated to eat potatoes. Which was a problem since potatoes was on the menu several times a week. I used to complain to my mom about it all the time, but she said that she would not cook one meal special for me every day and that I would eat potatoes until I learn to like them. And in the end, that's what happened. Now don't get me wrong, I can't force you to eat fish if you don't want to. I'm just saying that it would be better for you in the long run if you do. God knows we can't get deer meat every day."

"I know." Ellie conceded with a small sigh. "You can't be picky in the apocalypse."

"Attagirl." Pete said encouragingly and clapped her lightly on the back.

On Pete's other side came an audible click sound that immediately drew their attention. The noise was made by Ellie's gun that Clementine had pulled out. She had pulled back the slide to check that there was a bullet in the chamber. Seeming satisfied with her finding, she de-cocked the hammer, then made sure the safety was on before pushing the gun back into the back of her pants. "I was just checking." She said when she noticed that the two of them were watching her.

"Well you seem to know your way around a gun. Did anyone teach you how to shoot with that?" Pete asked her. "By that I mean taught proper. Any idiot with a finger can shoot." Pete said the last sentence with disdain. " _Like you're nephew._ " Ellie thought. "Yeah, but only a handgun, not a rifle!" Clementine answered. Pete nodded, "Well, that makes sense. Less kick. If you tried shooting with this." he gestured to his rifle, "it would probably knock you on your ass."

"I could handle it." Ellie said confidently. Before the outbreak in Boston, Ellie and several of the other kids had gotten their hands on a bb rifle. Ellie was very good with it, so good in fact that when she got her hands on a real rifle after the outbreak, she thought she could use it no problem, boy was she proven wrong. It had hurt a lot more than she thought it would and she had ended up bruising her shoulder badly. After that, she had not used a rifle again until she was put in the military school, where she learned that she had been holding the damn thing wrong. After some proper training, she became one of the best in the class, which was probably one of the reasons the instructors had hounded her so much about getting in line and follow the rules. They did not want a future military trained rebel fighter but a loyal soldier.

"I have no doubt you could." Pete said, "You know, Nick was about Clementine's age when I took him hunting for the first time.". He stopped in the middle of the path, "we came across this beautiful 13-point buck just standing there on the ridgeline. The boy takes the rifle." Pete raised his own rifle as if the 13-point buck was right in front of him. "He lines up the shot just as I taught him…then he starts whining." Pete lowered the rifle and shook his head. "He turns to me and he says, "I can't do it uncle Pete, I can't shoot it. Please don't make me shoot it".

"I think it's sad" Clementine said sympathetically. Ellie wasn't sure what she felt about it. If that deer showed up in front of her today, Ellie would have shot it without a second thought. But If the outbreak hadn't happened and she was twelve years old and in that situation, maybe she wouldn't have shot it either.

"Hey!" Nick's voice called out from behind them. The trio turned to look at him. "Why didn't you wait?" he asked when he stopped in front of them, slightly out of breath from running. "You want us standing around watching while you piss on a tree? You know where the river is boy." Pete answered, his tone dismissive. With that said, Pete started moving again and the others followed.

"Anyways, so I grab the gun out of his hands before the big buck runs away when bang! The gun fires. Boy nearly gut shot me." Pete said, picking up the story where he left off. " _That sounds familiar._ " Ellie thought and looked back over her shoulder at Nick, whose face was now as red as a tomato. Whether it was from embarrassment or anger, Ellie couldn't tell. "And of course, the buck got away." Pete continued, unaware that his nephew was now glaring daggers at the back of his head.

"What're you going and telling them this shit for?" Nick asked irritably. Pete stopped and turned to face his angry nephew, "because you almost blew Clementine's face off yesterday. Seems relevant, I'm just trying to let them know it's nothing personal with you.". Nick's shoulders sagged slightly at his uncle's reproach, "why are you always giving me a hard time?" he asked. "Because you are always giving everyone else a hard time." Pete answered, his tone harsh.

"I've apologized already, she accepted." Nick said and gestured to Clementine. "Yeah, it's fine. He apologized." Clementine said, stepping in in Nick's defense. "Ok, I didn't know that." Pete said, his tone more neutral but his eyes was still hard. "You're always trying to embarrass me" Nick said angrily. "You don't need my help with that. You're doing a good enough job on your own." Pete replied with the same tone. His face twisted in anger, Nick stormed off down the path towards the river, his shoulder colliding hard with Pete's as he past him.

"Running away again?"

"I know where the fucking river is, old man."

Pete silently stared at Nick's retreating back for a few seconds before he said, "I found that buck later that season. Shot it right in the neck. Brought it up to my sister's, figuring she'd want to freeze some of the meat…Nick didn't speak to me for weeks." Pete's face took on a remorseful expression. "Sometimes you got to play a role…even if the people you love hate you for it".

"I don't think he hates you." Clementine said, putting her hand on Pete's arm and squeezed it gently. "Clem's right. When he thought you had been bitten yesterday, he looked really scared." Ellie added. Pete smiled weakly at that. "Nick's father wasn't there much, and he was a piece of shit when he was." He said and spat onto the ground, as if the mere mention of the man gave him a bad taste in his mouth. "So, it fell to me to keep him in line. To raise him right. So…I couldn't be the "nice" uncle Pete that I wanted to be." he said the last part so solemnly that it tugged at Ellie's heart strings and she felt very sorry for the old man.

"You should tell him that." Clementine urged.

"What!?"

"Tell him t-"

"UNCLE PETE." Nick's distressed voice called out in the distance. Without a word or as much as a look at each other, the three of them raced in the direction of the call. Thoughts and theories raced through Ellie's mind. Was Nick under attack? If so by whom? Stalkers or bandits? But if he was under attack, why hadn't they heard any gun shots? Maybe he had lost his gun or wasn't under attack at all and had only fallen and hurt himself and was calling for help. Whatever the case was, they needed to reach him fast.

It didn't take them long before they spotted Nick standing at the entrance to a clear space in the woods. As far as Ellie could see, he didn't look to be hurt or under attack. Pete was the first to reach him, "Nick are you…" he started to say but stopped mid-sentence when he saw what his nephew was looking at. "Jesus, Mary and Josef." Pete said, his voice barely above a whisper. Ellie and Clem stopped next to him. Ellie felt her heart skip a beat when she saw what was in front of them, "what the fuck!". The sight was that of a massacre. Blood covered body's lay strewed all along the entire riverside. Not even the small patch of dry land in the middle of the river was spared from the slaughter.

"What happened here?" Clementine asked, her voice unease. No one answered her. Pete cautiously walked forwards towards the nearest body. "Pete, be careful." Clementine urged. Pete stopped just short out of arms reach from the body and poked it with the tip of his rifle. It didn't move. Pete walked closer. "Full of holes, including the head." he said in both relief and worry. Having been given the news that the body was not going to get up and try to eat them, the others joined him by the corpse. Using his foot, Pete rolled the dead man over onto his back.

"Oh Jesus." Nick murmured when he saw the state of the man's head and cover his mouth with his hand. Ellie didn't blame him, if Boston hadn't hardened her, she would most likely be doubled over and throwing up the content of her stomach right now. The man had been shot twice in the head from behind. One bullet had hit the upper left side of the head, and gone diagonally through, leaving a gaping red hole where his forehead and right temple should have been. The mushy and blood covered remains of the man's brain had been sprayed out of the head and now coated the ground. The second bullet had left a gaping bloody hole where his upper jaw and nose should have been.

From behind her, Ellie heard Clementine making gagging noises, no doubt trying to keep her dinner from coming up. Ellie looked back over her shoulder, "You okay Clementine?". Covering her mouth with one hand, Clem gave her a thumb's up with the other. "We should check him. Maybe there is something useful on him." Ellie suggested and moved closer, taking extra care not to step on any of the bits of brain on the ground. "Who do you think did this." Clementine asked, her voice sounded strained from trying to keep her food down. Ellie crouched down next to the body, the two bullets to the head had killed him, of that Ellie was sure, but he had been shot in more than just the head, a lot more. "I don't know" Pete answered, "but it ain't your average gang of thugs I can tell you that.".

"Yeah." Ellie said quietly in agreement. Ellie was no expert when it came to bullet wounds, but from the sheer number of them, Ellie guessed that the shooter had used an automatic weapon. Ellie felt a cold shiver go down her spine at this revelation, the fuckers that had attacked her and the fireflies had also used automatic weapons. " _Could this have been done by the same group that attacked us?_ " she wondered. The possibility that it was the same group was very high, after all, there couldn't be that many groups in this area. But this attack was a bit different from the one on the fireflies.

Killing people so that you could take their food, water and ammo, Ellie could understand. She and the other orphans had had to do that more than a few times back in Boston. But they had always tried to avoid conflict if possible. When that proved impossible, they tried to be as conservative with their ammo as possible, one shot to the head or the chest was usually enough to kill or incapacitate most people. The ones that had attacked the fireflies had gone by the same rules, don't waste any more bullets then you must. Whoever had done this however, didn't seem to give a damn about saving ammo.

What the hell did this all mean? Had these people been killed by the same group that attacked the fireflies or another one entirely? If it was the same group, then why the hell did they suddenly start acting like idiots and waist their ammo? Ellie mentally shook her head, she didn't know what to make of this. She searched the body, hoping against hope that she would find some clue that could answer her questions. Unsurprisingly, she found none. She looked up at Pete and the others and said, "he's been picked clean.".

"I'm not surprised." Pete replied, "you'd have to be a moron to kill all these people and then just leave their supplies behind."

"What I don't get is why they use so many bullets? I mean look at this" Ellie gestured to the body, "it's overkill!"

"It's a message" Nick said, the muscles in his face tense and his knuckles was turning white from gripping his rifle. "A message? To whom?" Ellie asked. "Us." Nick answered simply. Pete made a "hmm" sound, a thoughtful frown on his face. Seeing the expression his uncle made, Nick continued, "think about it. You're Carver, what do you do?".

" _That name again. Rebecca said that name yesterday._ " Ellie opened her mouth to ask who the hell Carver was, but Clementine beat her to the punch. "Whose Carver?" she asked. Uncle and nephew shared a look of uncertainty with each other. Ellie's knees made a cracking sound as she stood up. "Yeah, who's Carver?" she asked, echoing Clementine's question but with more force. "Rebecca said that name yesterday. She thought that we were working for him. So, who is he?".

There was a short pause, then Pete sighed and scratched the back of his neck. "I suppose that since you're with us now, you should know. Me, Nick and the others used to be part of a community not too far from here. When we joined, it looked like a good fit. We had food, weapons and strong walls to protect us. But as time went, the leader of the community, Carver, became less friendly and more of a…".

"Fucking psychopathic dictator." Nick supplied.

"Not the words I'd use, but yeah."

"And you think he's chasing you?" Clementine asked, she looked around the river side as if expecting Carver to jump out at them from a bush. "I don't think he is. I know he is." Pete said with steely certainty. "Why would he chase after you guys?" Clementine asked. "We stole some weapons, ammo and a lot of food when we left. I'm damn sure he didn't like that. He'd want to make examples out of us." He gestured at the bodies along the river, "so that no one else would try to leave his community or steal from him ever again.".

" _Oh, you got to be fucking kidding me. Jesus fucking Christ._ " Ellie thought. What the hell kind of mess had they got themselves into, they had ended up in a fucking war between two groups. "And when the fuck where you planning to tell us this? When Carver was knocking down the fucking front door?" Ellie shouted, startling the others. "Keep your voice down girl." Pete hissed. Ellie ignored him, if Carver was as dangerous as Pete implied and was in the area, then they needed to get the fuck out of dodge. She grabbed Clementine by her good arm, "come on Clem, we're leaving." she said and tried to drag the smaller girl away with her. Clementine was unprepared for the sudden movement and stumbled and almost fell over.

"The hell do you think you're going?" Nick asked. "Back to the cabin to get my stuff and then we'll get as far away from here as fucking possible." Ellie answered over her shoulder, "if we stay with you we'd be painting two big fucking bullseyes on our backs.". With a few quick steps, Pete caught up to them, his strong hand grabbed her by the arm and halting her in mid-step. "Look around you, Ellie." He said sharply, sweeping his hand in the direction of the bodies. "Look at these people. Do you think Carver gives a damn if you're with us or not? If he finds you, he'll kill you and Clementine without a second thought.".

"We won't be any safer with you. These people outnumbered your group in case you didn't notice and Carver still managed to kill them all. Two people can move quicker and quieter than nine." Ellie tried to twist herself loose, but Pete's grip was iron. "That maybe so, but two people are easier targets to." Pete countered. He let go of her arm, "besides, you don't have enough food or water to survive out there for long on your own."

Ellie felt her face heat up in anger. It was the same situation again, it was the same fucking situation she had been in this morning when she was arguing with Carlos in the shed, except the alternatives was even worse. Stay and become a target of a psychopath or leave and most likely die of starvation, stalkers or said psychopath. "Son of a fucking bitch." Ellie muttered in frustration, she let go of Clem's arm and kicked the ground, sending a small rock flying into the river. "Fine. What do we do now?" she asked. "We check the rest of the body's, see if we can find something. And be careful. Some of them might still be moving."

The four of them split up and started searching the body's. Ellie stopped next to the body of a woman, her face frozen into one of fear and pain upon her death. She had been shot several times in the torso and ones in the head. Ellie guessed that the head shot had probably been done after her death, since the bullet hole was located smack in the middle of her forehead. Ellie crouched down and started to rummage through the woman's pockets. Like with the man before, Ellie found nothing of use. From the corner of her eyes she saw Nick poke the body of a man just a few meters from her. Thankfully, the body didn't move.

"Ellie, how's it looking?" Pete called from behind her.

"She's been shot in the head." Ellie answer, "and all over." she added under her breath.

"Nick?"

"Same here."

"Clementine?"

"Same."

"Did any of you find anything on the body's?"

They all answered in the negative. Pete muttered something under his breath that she couldn't hear. "There are more body's out there!" Clementine said and pointed to the other side of the river, earning her a nod from Pete. "Your buddy Carver is pretty good at ambushing people, isn't he?" Ellie said rhetorically, "there are no bullet casings on the ground. I don't think these people even managed to fire a single shot before they were all killed.". Pete grunted in response but didn't look at her, his eyes was trained on the far shore. "I think your right. This place has FUBAR written all over it." Pete said and walked out into the river towards the small island.

"FUBAR?" Clementine repeated, "what does that mean?" she asked Ellie, who responded with a shrug. She had heard some of the soldiers in Boston use the word a few times, but she had never asked them what it meant. "It's means fucked up beyond all reason." Nick said quickly from beside them. "Pete, we should get the fuck out of here now! and warn the others." Nick voice shook slightly as he spoke, maybe out of fear. Ellie didn't blame him, she was starting to feel more than a little afraid herself. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm with Nick on this one. We should tell the others and get as far away from here as possible before Carver shows up." Ellie said.

"We can't, we got to check the rest first." Pete said over his shoulder.

"What?! Why? They'll be picked clean like the others." Nick almost shouted.

"Calm down and think about it, son."

"Calm down?! We got to get the fuck out of here. NOW." Nick sounded like he was on the verge of becoming hysterical. Having reached the small island, Pete turned to face them. "Jesus Christ, kid, get a hold of yourself." he said in annoyance.

"What if someone's alive, Nick?" Clementine asked.

"Clem, I highly doubt they left anyone alive." Ellie said, gesturing to the dead bodies laying all around them, "they were very thorough. We should go and warn the others."

"But they might have missed someone." Clem countered insistently.

"She's right. If even just one of these folks are still alive, we have to find them. They might be able to tell us who did this and where they went. We got to do this now." Pete said with a tone that brokered no more argument. "Nick, you and Ellie stay there and keep searching the rest. Clem, you're with me.". Seeing that his mind was set and that there was no point arguing with him, Ellie said "roger dodger. Come on, Nick." with a sigh and walked off towards the nearest unchecked body. "This is a dumb idea." Nick muttered as he followed behind her. Ellie silently agreed with him.

The search of the remaining bodies went quickly, and the result was what Ellie had expected. None of the them were alive and none of them had anything of use. Ellie's knees cracked when she rose from her crouch next to the body of a man with a shaved head that was dressed in a leather jacket and cargo pants. Ellie thought he looked like he had ones been a member of a biker gang before the outbreak. His corpse, like all the others she had searched, was riddled with holes. Ellie had tried to count the total number off bullet holes in all the bodies she had searched. She had reached sixty something when she checked the previous corpse. At that point however, Nick had cursed loudly. Fearing that they were under attack, Ellie had unslung her bow and looked up in his direction, only to discover that he's shoe laces had come undone and gotten stuck in a tree root. This distraction had made her lose count.

Ellie walked over to Nick, who was crouching over the last body. "Found anything?" she asked. She expected him to answer in the negative and she wasn't disappointed. "Not a damn thing." Nick answered and stood up. "this was nothing but a waste of time." He growled. Ellie nodded in agreement. This had been nothing but a waist of valuable time, time they could have spent putting as much distance between them and Carver as possible.

"It's a bit weird don't you think?" Ellie said.

"What is?"

"I mean there is hardly any stalkers here. The noise from the gunshots should have drawn them like flies to shit. So, where are they?" Ellie asked. Nick shrugged, "maybe they killed them all or maybe there aren't many in the area." He suggested. "I hope you're right." Ellie said and gazed into the forest, but saw no sign of any walking corpses. "Come on. Let's go tell Pete we found nothing. Maybe now he'll see sense and we can leave." Nick said and started walk in the direction of the river. Ellie was about to do the same, when she saw a pair of legs sticking out from behind a tree a bit into the forest.

"Nick! There's another body in there." Ellie said and pointed into the forest. Nick looked at where she was pointing and let out a sigh of annoyance. Seeing that Nick obviously wasn't in the mood to pick the pockets of another corpse, Ellie said, "I'll go check it out. You can go and try to talk some sense into Pete.". She had barely taken a single step however when Nick said, "I'll come with you.". Ellie looked over her shoulder at him, "you don't have to. I can do it myself." she said. "We should stick together. Safety in numbers and all that." Nick said, "besides, Pete would get pissed at me if he knew I let you go in there alone.". Seeing no point in starting an argument over the matter, Ellie said "fine." and headed off into the forest, Nick following close behind her.

The man was lying face down on the ground with a hole near the base of the neck. At the sound of their approaching footsteps, the man's head had started making noises and move its jaw. The rest of the body however, remained thankfully unmoving. Ellie thought it looked a bit stupid just laying there doing nothing but chewing air and dirt. "He ain't getting up. Shot took out the spine." Nick observed. "Yeah, but it can still bite us if we're careless." Ellie said, pulling out her knife and stabbing it into the back of the skull, she twisted it around until the head became quiet.

"He's not been shot up like the others and he hasn't been looted either." Ellie said as she noted the backpack on his back and a rifle laying next to the body where it had fallen. "Maybe they didn't know he was in here and a stray shot got him?" Nick suggested. Ellie nodded in agreement, it was as good an explanation as any. "What do you think he was doing in here?" Ellie asked. Nick shrugged, "who cares, he's dead. Let's just see if he has something useful on him so we can go.". Nick leaned his rifle against the tree where the body had fallen and removed the backpack from the dead man and started rummaging through it.

With the backpack out of the way, Ellie rolled the body over so that she could go through the man's pockets. As she went about this, she tried not to look at the red ruin that was the man's throat. Ellie's search went quickly, although she found several items on the man, most of it were just stuff that had had some sentimental value to him but was of no use to Ellie and the group. She did however make one good find. "Anything good in there?" she asked Nick when she was finished. "There's a map, some clothes and three cans of food in here. Other than that, nothing of worth." He replied and slung the backpack onto his back. "You?" he asked. "Only a half empty package of rifle ammo." she answered and held it out to Nick, who took it. "Good. We've been running low." He said and put the box in his pocket.

Nick bent down and picked up the dead man's weapon from the ground and inspected it. From what Ellie could tell, it looked to be of the same model as the ones Pete and Nick used, but there was one major distinction, this one had a scope. "It looks to be in good shape. Hardly any wear and tear at all." Nick commented as he turned the weapon over in his hands. He lifted the bolt handle and pulled it back, "fully loaded." He said when he inspected the chamber. When he was finished with his inspection, he looked at it for a few second thoughtfully, then he said, "Here, you take it." and held it out to her.

"You're giving it to me?!" Ellie said, astonished that Nick would offer her a weapon that was – as far as she could tell – in better condition than his own and it had a scope to boot. "Why?"

"Because I already have a rifle and so does Pete. It'd be stupid to just lug this thing around when you can use it. You do know how to use it, right?"

"Of course I do. But why are you giving me this one? It's in better condition than yours."

"Well if you don't want it..." Nick said with a small smile on his face and started to pull the weapon back.

"I didn't say that." Ellie said quickly and reached out with both hands and took the weapon from Nick's unresisting hands. The wood felt smooth in her hands and as Nick had stated, there was hardly any scratches on it. Hell, it looked almost brand new, as if it had been bought at the gun store yesterday. The guy most have really loved his gun to take this well care of it. She pressed the rifle against her shoulder and aimed it deeper into the forest. Closing one eye, she peered into the scope. " _This is awesome_." She thought as she looked around, aiming the crosshair at imaginary target's.

"Come on, let's go back to the other so we can get the hell out of here." Nick said, dragging Ellie back to reality. She lowered her rifle and looked over her shoulder and saw that Nick had picked up his own rifle and was already heading towards the river. "You didn't answer my question, Nick." Ellie said when she caught up to him. "Why did you give this to me?"

"Does it matter?"

"I wouldn't ask if it didn't. So, why are you giving this to me?"

Nick stopped and turned to face her. "Because I know your still pissed off about what happened yesterday."

"Why would I be pissed off at you for yesterday?" Ellie asked sarcastically, "I mean, you were only trying to kill my friend!".

"I thought she was infected and that she would turn and kill one of us alright! I was wrong! I almost killed a defenseless little girl, do you think I'm proud of that! I acted like a complete asshole!" Nick said heatedly. He sighed, and his voice softened, "I'm just…trying to make things right." he said, then added in a mutter to himself, "goddamnit, I'm not any good at this shit.".

Ellie was about to tell him that he couldn't make thinks right between them by giving gifts, that her forgiveness couldn't be bought, it could only be earned over time. Maybe it was the regret she saw in Nick's face that stopped her from saying the words. The guy was clearly remorseful for his actions, he had even apologized to both of them at breakfast even though it was Clementine he had almost killed. Clementine had forgiven him, she had even gone so far as to give her condolences for what had happened to Nick's mom.

Ellie on the other hand, hadn't accepted his apology and she had not – outwardly – shown any sympathy for anything that had happened to Nick, hell she hadn't done anything but give Nick scorn whenever they spoke. Ellie had not wanted to be a part of this group because she thought that half of them were assholes, now one of the assholes was trying to ease the animosity between the two of them with a gift – a damn good gift too – and Ellie had been about to verbally abuse him for it. " _I'm starting to feel like I'm the asshole here._ " She thought. Maybe it was time to take a leaf out of Clementine's book and bury the war hatchet…in a very shallow grave…dug in sand…with the handle sticking up and easy to reach.

Softening her voice as best she could, Ellie said "Thanks. It's an…awesome gift.". Nick blinked in surprise at her words, then he smiled. "You welcome.". There was a short awkward silence that followed, where neither one of them seemed to know what to say. "We should get back to the others before they notice that we're gone and get worried." Nick said, thankfully breaking the silence. "Yeah." Ellie agreed and the two headed towards the river, Nick taking the lead with Ellie behind him.

Their short trip into the forest seemed to have gone unnoticed by the others. Ellie looked out over the river. Clementine was crouching down on the small island by some rocks and was looking at something that Ellie couldn't see. Pete was standing on the opposite shore with his back to the river and seemed to be watching the tree lines. " _Probably keeping an eye out for stalkers…or Carver._ " Ellie thought and was about to head over when a movement caught her eye. Her brow furrowed. There was no wind, so, was it her imagination or was the reeds on the opposite side of the river moving of their own.

Ellie unslung her new rifle, placed the butt against her shoulder. "What are you doing?" Nick asked. "I thought I saw something move over there." Ellie answered as she looked through the scope, aiming it towards the reeds. "I don't see anything." Nick said from beside her. At first, Ellie saw nothing either, then something large, pale and glistening dragged itself into view out of the water. Ellie's eyes widened in recognition, "Stalker!" she cried out as she aimed the crosshair at the thing that was slowly dragging itself up the shore towards Pete. "What?" was the only words Nick had time to say before Ellie pulled the trigger.

The butt of the rifle kicked back hard against her shoulder and a loud bang – that made Ellie's ears ring – echoed across the river and surrounding forest. The tree's burst into life as flocks of birds left them to fly away from the loud noise. On the opposite shore, parts of the crawling stalker's head exploded, and a shower of blood, brains and skull fragments flew out. The crawling dead man collapsed onto the ground like a marionette that had had its strings cut.

Certain that the thing was now dead, Ellie trained the rifle towards Pete, who had spun on his heel at the sound of the shot. With the help of the scope she could clearly see the expression on his face change, first from shock, then anger and finally horrified realization of how close he had come to being bitten. "Uncle Pete, are you alright." Ellie heard Nick yell over the ringing in her ears. "Yeah…yeah, I'm fine." Pete called back, then he said something to himself that Ellie couldn't hear, but she guessed that it was probably a curse. It's what she would have done if their situations had been reversed.

Certain that he wasn't in any more danger, Ellie lowered her rifle and discharge the empty cartridge. Pete looked at her and nodded his thanks. It was a bit difficult to tell without the scope, but Ellie thought it looked like he was smiling at her. She felt her heart swell with pride, she nodded and smiled back at him.

"Shit! Lurkers!" Nick exclaimed out from her right and fire a shot, making Ellie jumped in surprise. She was about to turn and help him when from the left corner of her eyes saw two stalkers shambling out of the forest towards her and Nick. " _Where the hell had they come from?!_ " Ellie spun to face the new threat and raised her rifle. She lined up her shot and pulled the trigger. Her bullet hit the first stalker between the eyes and blew out the back of its head. She quickly emptied the cartridge and fired a second shot that hit the other stalker in the left side of the forehead.

The second stalker hadn't even hit the ground before Ellie saw more coming out of the woods. Behind her, she heard Nick fire two shots in rapid succession along with a string of curses. From across the river came several more gun shots. Pete and Clem were either helping to kill the ones who was coming from Nick's direction – since none of the ones coming towards Ellie died – or they were under attack as well. Another shot was fired from the other side of the river, then Pete's voice shouted, "I'm out of ammo.".

"Come this way, we have more!" Nick shouted back.

"Son of a bitch…dammit, get your asses over here, all of you!" Pete roared. Ellie turned her head and saw that the situation on the other side of the river was no better than their own, in fact it was even worse, Pete was alone on his side. Without ammo, he had turned his rifle into an impromptu club and was using it to smash in a stalker's head. It collapsed onto the ground, but more were shambling towards him in an ever-closing circle of death and decay. Clementine was still on her small island, which was thankfully still stalker free. She was holding Ellie's gun in her hands and she was looking back and forth between Ellie and Pete, seeming torn as to whom she should help.

"I'm out." Nick shouted from behind Ellie, drawing her attention back to the battle at hand and not a moment too soon. With a burst of speed, that stalkers only ever showed when they were in the presence of fresh meat, a pair of rotting hands reached out to grab her. Ellie only just managed to duck under the arms and side step out of the way at the last second. She raised her rifle and blew the stalker's head to pieces, spraying herself with blood and brain matter. She did the same to the next one. She pulled back the stock to empty the spent cartridge and load the next bullet, only to see to her dismay that the rifle was out of ammo.

"Jesus! Fuck!" Pete screamed in sudden panic, drawing Ellie's attention. A stalker had managed to get close enough to grab him and force him to the ground. "Uncle Pete!" Nick yelled. Like Pete, Nick had started to use his empty rifle like a club and was now trying to smash his way through the stalkers that was standing between him and the river. Despite Nick's efforts, he was forced back. There were simply to many of the dead to take on alone and they were now coming from almost all directions at ones. Pete let out another scream. "Uncle Pete" Nick shouted in response.

With no time to reload, Ellie slung the rifle over her shoulder and pulled out her knife. She kicked the leg of the nearest stalker, toppling it over onto the ground. She quickly stabbed it in the head and just as quickly pulled the knife out. She aimed her next knife trust at another stalker and with a roar, she buried the blade up to the hilt in its skull. Her kills didn't seem to do shit however to the overall numbers of the things. More just kept on coming.

A gun shot sounded from across the river. Ellie threw a quick glance in the direction of the sound. Pete was still on the ground, but he had pushed the stalker that had downed him off and it was now laying as motionless as a stick beside him. Clementine was standing by his side and was shooting the oncoming stalkers.

Ellie saw her down two of them when she felt a strong hand grip her upper arm so hard that it hurt. She whirled around, her arm pulled back in preparation to stab the stalker that had gripped her. She just managed to stop herself at the last second from stabbing Nick in the face. Nick flinched back at the sight of the knife but quickly rallied, "come on, we got to go." he shouted and dragged her in the direction of the forest.

"What?! No! we can't leave without the others!" Ellie shouted back at him and tried to wrench herself free from his grip. But Nick was bigger, stronger and his fingers were clamped like iron around her arm, so all her struggling managed to do was slow down his retreat and give herself a few bruises in the process. She looked back in the direction of the river, there were so many stalkers clustered together in front of her now that she could just barely see Clem pushing what looked like a piece of wood against an oncoming stalker, trying to keep it at a distance.

"We can't help them!" Nick shouted, "if we stay here we're dead!". Ellie was only half listening to him, another voice was screaming inside her head. It told her to fight her way through the wall of corpses and help her friends. But it became harder and harder for her to see Clementine as more and more stalkers were coming towards her. The dead were coming from all directions and soon they would surround her and Nick. If they did, there would be no escape for them. The logical part of her brain told her that Nick was right, there was nothing they could do to help Pete and Clementine. The terrible realization was like a knife stabbing into her heart. For all they knew, both Pete and Clementine could already have been bitten. With that horrible thought in her mind, Ellie stopped struggling against Nick and let herself be dragged into the forest.

* * *

Thank you for reading and Happy new year to you all.


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